ABSTRACT
The regularity of such a high number of occupational deaths each year suggests that the propensity of companies to conduct their affairs in ways that result in death or serious injury is not attributable to erratic influences like the occasional enterprise of a few extraordinarily careless or unscrupulous firms. The changing patterns of accidents and occupational ill health revealed by the latest statistical analysis indicates that fatal accident rates are at an historically low level. The electric safety gate on the conveyor belt in question was defective so that the victim’s body passed through without the belt stopping. The cash and carry warehouse company is clearly able to pass on some of its assiduous cost savings to the customer. Newspaper advertisements at the time of the inquest and even at the time of writing proudly boast of the firm’s ‘Low, low prices’. The advertisements say nothing about the level of its safety standards.
