Safety Zone

Safety pays, so prioritize

Safety threats to your employees and boats can come from different directions. But you’ve only got so many resources for safety.

Training, equipment and time all cost money. You can’t do it all and still operate a profitable business. But keep this in mind: You have no latitude on compliance, which isn’t optional.

Your underwriter has all of it in your loss history. When it comes to keeping down costs, preventing or reducing accidents is the name of the game. Yes, safety does pay.

Where do you put your resources to get the best return on safety investments? That’s a good question.

Start by prioritizing. I found that in order to prioritize, you had to know the big picture. My big picture was from the limited vantage point of only what was happening in my own company. That’s not a very big picture. What you need is an industrywide, 10,000-foot view.

Even with all it encompasses each day, the towing industry is an exceptionally safe business with low accident rates. I researched and crunched some data and found some interesting information. It suggests risks that should be focused on in the grand scheme.

You’ve heard that bad things happen to good people, so I took a look at the industry’s overall stats for fatalities, injuries and events.

Keep in mind that we all know that 70 percent of bad things are caused by people and human factors. People factor into the causes of much of the following:

• Fatalities. What is the “best” way to die? You guessed it. A fall into the water is 60 percent fatal. The next best way is asphyxiation in confined spaces, at 15 percent fatal. These are the top two fatality threats.
• Injuries. Thirty percent are slips, trips and falls, 20 percent are strains and sprains, and getting hit with something accounts for 10 percent of all injuries. Line handling, surprisingly, makes up less than 10 percent of all injuries. Thirty percent of injuries are severe, and 70 percent are minor. It stands to reason that not much separates a minor injury from a fatality. Personal injury attorneys are ready to pounce. If you take care of these items, then you’ve beaten over 60 percent of your risk of injuries.
• Events (not causes). Groundings account for 30 percent of events, material failures 30 percent, and allisions 25 percent. Collision, flooding, fire, steering and others fall into the remaining 15 percent. Most events are minor (95 percent), but are usually only a heartbeat away from a major accident. Keep your equipment up and make sure you can navigate and drive and you’ve got 85 percent of badness covered.

Consider focusing your limited safety resources on these threats and take a bite out of 75 percent of fatalities, 60 percent of injuries, and 85 percent of accidents. That’s the big picture.

Like G.I. Joe says: “Now you know. And knowing is half the battle.”

Sail safe!