Accident Prevention Accidents are usually complex. An accident may have 10 or more events that can be causes. At the lowest level, an accident results only when a person or object receives an amount of energy or hazardous material that cannot be absorbed safely. The direct cause is usually the result of one or more unsafe acts or unsafe conditions, or both. In turn, indirect causes are usually traceable to poor management policies and decisions, or to personal or environmental factors.
Most accidents are preventable by eliminating one or more causes.
Accident investigations determine not only what happened, but also how and why. The information gained from these investigations can prevent recurrence of similar or perhaps more disastrous accidents. Accident investigators are interested in each event as well as in the sequence of events that led to an accident. The accident type is also important to the investigator. The recurrence of accidents of a particular type or those with common causes shows areas needing special accident prevention emphasis.