ABSTRACT
An accident model is a mutually agreed, and often unspoken, understanding of how accidents occur. In the sequence of events model, the choice of events considered causal to one another is subjective and always incomplete. The starting point of the sequence is an arbitrary choice too, as prior events can always be added. The sequence of events model is very good for explaining the last few minutes before an accident, and how the events during that time could be related to the outcome. The sequence-of-events model can deal well with cause-effect relationships. When it comes to the organizational factors behind the creation of an accident, the sequence-of-events model does not help one to understand or prove much. Even though it may linearlize and oversimplify, the epidemiological model has been helpful in portraying the resulting imperfect organizational structure that let an accident happen.
