ABSTRACT
Human error has been a factor in industrial/occupational accidents since the very first days of industrialisation. Indeed, it was probably just as much an issue in the agricultural period which provided most of the gainful employment prior to the industrial revolution. Equally, human error would have undoubtedly also created problems in early military activities. Probably the only thing to have changed as industrialisation developed is that the potential consequences of human error have grown as the systems within which people interact have become more complex. Human error is far from a simple problem, it is extremely varied and highly complex. The first myth is that human error effectively equates to front-line operator error. It is of course true that the error immediately preceding an accident event will be an operator error. The second myth is that all human errors likely to create accidents are as a result of the actions of "accident prone" people.
