What are the costs of an accident? Many of the known costs associated with an accident are simple to expect: cost of medical care; fines from osha or state equivalent; damaged equipment; lost wages to the employee on sick leave. what isn't frequently spoken of below a managerial level is the hidden costs of an accident, the aspects that cannot be insured against or immediately known - purely detrimental to both the workers directly affected by the incident and the company's ability to absorb the impact.
For every dollar of loss with an accident or injury, the safety industry has generally derived the actual underlying costs between 3 to sometimes 10 times the direct associated costs.
The frequent metaphor used to illustrate this is an ice berg; you can see 10%-20% of it above water but the remaining 80-90% of the ice berg is hidden from view beneath:
it's easy to make decisions out in the field based on "it's a Friday," answering that text while driving in a company truck or the tma isn't on the jobsite yet - lets get going anyway; that one choice can save a few minutes, half hour, maybe just a few seconds. What are these short cuts potential cost? it is very easy when your mindset is thinking about just making it till payday, or late to that meeting but the true costs effect the entire organization, the family of you or your coworkers - everyone.