ABSTRACT
Heinrich believed that 88 percent of all accidents were caused by the unsafe acts or behaviours of workers, 10 percent by unsafe physical conditions and the remaining two percent through unpreventable 'Acts of God'. The Domino Theory illustrates the process where failure of one factor actuates the next step, just like a line of dominoes being toppled consecutively. The author can recall playing Domino Rally as a kid, lining up literally hundreds of dominoes around the house and setting off a chain reaction to knock the whole row down as it snaked around chair legs, click-click-clicking as it wound ever decreasing circles. Accident causation theories like the Swiss cheese and the Domino model encourage us to gather data. The Domino and Cheese models have helped us to learn that consequences are preceded by causes but where the models lack is that they encourage us to assume that all causes can be identified.
