Like any other working environment, those in the construction industry may experience work accidents from time to time. If the employee’s injury can be directly attributed to the mistakes of the employer, these accidents can lead to successful construction accident claims.
While making work accident claims can help many of those injured on construction sites, it is far better if employees and workers are made well aware of the dangers, and the correct procedures are put into place to prevent construction accidents from happening in the first place. This would lead to a reduction in construction accidents and fewer construction accident claims being made.
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) provides statistics related to construction accidents – here are four interesting construction accident statistics for those who want to learn more about the potential dangers of working on a construction site.
1. Construction accidents have the most fatal injuries
With 29.4 percent of all fatal injuries in 2008/9 attributable to the construction industry, construction accidents cause the most fatal injuries of all the main industry groups. With 53 fatal construction accident injuries in 2008/9, this was, however, a 26 percent decrease on the previous year’s figure.
2. Major construction injuries are decreasing
Since 1999/2000 there has been an overall decrease in the number of reported major injuries occurring in the construction industry. In fact, the overall rate for 2008/9 is 36 percent down on that for 1999/2000. Despite this reduction, there are still more major injuries reported among those working on construction sites than there are in any other main industry group. There was also a steady decrease in over-3-day construction injuries during this time, totalling a 43 percent decrease since 1999/2000.
3. The most common construction accidents involve handling and slips and trips
Construction accidents most commonly involve handling (29 percent of accidents) and slips and trips (22 percent). These are also the most common types of accidents reported across all the main industries. However, construction differed from other industries in the overall quantity of injuries resulting from falling from a height. This accounts for 17 percent of construction injuries compared to only 8 percent overall. Moving or falling objects were also more of a cause of accidents in construction, with 16 percent compared to an overall 11 percent. Contact with moving machinery, electricity and collapses/overturns all had a higher occurrence in construction than in other industries.
4. Less serious construction injuries are under-reported
A higher proportion of reported construction accidents are serious compared to those in other industries. However, Labour Force Survey (LFS) data indicates that this is because less serious construction injuries are under-reported. The LFS estimated rate of non fatal injuries for 2007/8 was 1427 per 100,000 compared to the actual rate reported of 880 per 100,000. This indicates some work accident victims may be missing out on the compensation they deserve by failing to make legitimate construction accident claims for less serious injuries.
If you have suffered as a result of a construction accident, you may be able to make a construction accident claim. Find out more about work accident claims by contacting a legitimate claims management company as soon as possible.
