ABSTRACT
The human cost of North Sea oil has been very high. Assessing the cost has remained difficult because of problems of statistical reporting. Carson’s pioneering, but cautious, analysis highlights the connection of statistical deficiencies to gaps in industrial safety legislation. Says Carson:
Statistics, it should not be forgotten, always carry some political potential, and North Sea oil is not only a physically volatile substance but also a politically volatile issue. Added to that, the very deficiencies of the statistics themselves attest to important features of the North Sea safety regime. Inadequately co-ordinated with analogous figures for onshore industries, they point to the fact that for economic and political reasons … industrial safety legislation has been substantially permitted to plough its own administrative furrow; incomplete in their coverage, they reflect the ad hoc nature of a regulatory approach … always overshadowed by the other urgent considerations associated with North Sea oil. (1982: 16–17)
