ABSTRACT
Reading the confident reports of the UK's Health and Safety Executive and the corporate responsibility reports of various large companies gives an impression of organisations that have got health and safety under control. Organisations like to portray a positive image of them. The best one can do in finding direct evidence of under-reporting is rely on spies, listening to anonymous workers. There are just too many competing organisations and people in the metaphorical medieval marketplace with their own motivations and agendas to be able to gain objective data; even were objective data available there would be too much of it to cope with all of it. The effect of inadequate models of accident causation is potentially to throw the organisations into disarray. There is anecdotal evidence that in companies and organisations that have an authoritarian approach to health and safety widespread fear exists.
