November Newsletter

geotechnical Projects

Recently in the Wall Street Journal, I know, a strange place for a work safety spotlight, there was an article, “Who is Most Likely to Get Hurt on the Job? You Might be Surprised.” Well to tell the truth, I was surprised. So, I thought I would share the findings of the study with you. Logic might say that people who do dangerous jobs are most likely to suffer workplace accidents. It turns out according to researchers, workers whose occupations are extremely dangerous (wellhead pumpers, boilermakers, etc.) are less likely to get injured on the job than workers with moderately hazardous jobs (such as airport baggage handler, welders, and pest-control workers). The dangerous jobs had an injury rate of 3 per 1,000, while moderately dangerous jobs had an injury rate of 23 per 1,000. In fact, plotting out injuries from not dangerous work to dangerous work, researchers found an inverted U shape - meaning Not Dangerous work and Dangerous work both had very low injury rates, but moderately dangerous work had higher injury rates. This phenomenon was identified in multiple injury datasets. The next question is why? Researchers used a video game test that centered around money, choices, efficiency, and risk. The videogame test found similar findings to the injury datasets. It turns out that most people view efficiency in a moderately dangerous job or game as acceptable risk.

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