ABSTRACT
As road fatality rates decrease, occupational fatality rates also decrease. This phenomenon becomes even more intriguing when countries are ranked in order of their performance. Putting aside triumphalism about the United Kingdom's (UK) leading position for the moment, the pattern of occurrence indicates that the reason is something to do with national culture or economics. Currently there is no method of measuring safety culture but there is a method of measuring national cultures. In a remarkable program of inductive research Geert Hofstede developed a method of characterising nations which became known as Hofstede's dimensions of national culture. The comparative study of low injury-rate organisations offers a potential route to getting off the plateau of safety performance. Treated in isolation from the rest of Europe, UK construction could be interpreted as a poorly managed industry. One thing that characterises most of the health and safety community worldwide is its general lack of curiosity.
