Transport Risk: Incidents and Accidents Vocabulary

Incident

An undesired event that may impact negatively on the efficiency of business operations, cause injury, ill-health, or fatality, or present a near-miss event with potential to cause harm.

Accident

An undesired event that results in physical harm to a person or damage to property, and can be seen as a type of incident.

Employee

Any person who is employed by or works for an employer and receives or is entitled to receive remuneration, or works under the direction or supervision of an employer or another person.

Hazard

A source of or exposure to danger, or anything in the workplace area that puts the wellbeing of workers, passers-by, or the environment at risk.

Healthy

Free from illness or injury attributable to occupational causes.

Major Incident

An occurrence of catastrophic proportions, resulting from the use of plant or machinery, or from activities at a workplace.

Occupational Hygiene

The anticipation, recognition, evaluation, and control of conditions arising in or from the workplace, which may cause illness or adverse health effects to persons.

Swiss Cheese Model

James Reason's accident model proposing that multiple barriers exist to prevent accidents, but when all barriers fail and line up like holes in slices of Swiss cheese, an accident occurs.

Domino Theory

Herbert Heinrich's theory stating that injuries result from accidents caused by unsafe acts, which stem from human faults originating in