Accident Prevention - What They Say and What They Do.

When it comes to accident prevention on the work site of a big company are they just paying lip service?

I have been looking at the major industrial accidents that have been going on in the last few months.

For example the West Virginia coal mine deaths and the British Petroleum Horizon Rig explosion and other accidents where people have been killed through out the world and a lot of them seem to have a common thread...

These companies seem to have a history of workplace safety violations. Government safety organizations are not handing out just one or two fines but in some cases over 30 violations.

How Are Safety Violations Handled ?

When it comes to safety violations in the United States what happens is that big companies have two options they can either contest a safety violation and hold it for a hearing.

Or they can pay a fine for the violation. Paying fines seem to be the preferred method if you look at past cases.

For example just this last week British Petroleum has agreed to pay 20 Billion Dollars for the big oil spill in United States.

They are also paying families of the victims millions of dollars so they when press legal charges against them.

Is this the first time? No. This has happened before and BP has done what they are doing now, throwing money at the problem.

So When It Comes To Accident Prevention Where Do They Stand?

When you go onto an industrial site one of the first things that you are told is that safety is our number one priority.Here are all the rules and regulations that you have to follow.

One thing that I believe is that if you want to know about a companies prevention system. You should be able to look at their safety record and see how many violations that they have had.

I also think that it would be great if a company has a bad safety record it should be made public. Lets have a Top 50 and a Bottom 50 list for company safety violations.

Smaller companies are saying that with a bad safety record they can't compete because your safety is one of the things that determines who a contract is awarded to.

So what about big companies? What is their biggest motivators,production or safety.I've seen it time and again, production has always won out in a crunch.

Imagine if everyone's bonuses were directly tied to a companies safety record. If there were a workplace incident then no one from the CEO on down would get a bonus that year.

It just might make the workplace a little safer place to be.

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