30.06.2021

IPAF safety report published

IPAF has published its annual Global Safety Report and accident statistics, with electrocutions and falls from the platform the two main causes of serious injuries and fatalities when using powered access.

The report has been updated this year to provide a global overview, followed by specific data on the six main accident types broken down by location, machine type, industry sector, and lost time incident analysis.

Over the past five years the two most common causes of fatal incidents have been listed at falls from the platform and electrocutions, accounting for 23 percent of deaths. This is followed by operator entrapment at 19 percent, overturns at 12 percent, the platform being struck by another machine or vehicle at six percent and being hit by falling objects at five percent.

See below the report along with the full breakdown of the stats, comments and advice:

Brian Parker, IPAF’s head of safety & technical, said: “It may be statistically interesting to compare the number of accidents occurring around the world and between industry sectors, but it is more relevant and informative to be able to take a detailed look at electrocutions and falls from the platform, for example, to see what machine type, configuration, location or industry sector these are occurring in, to consider what some of the underlying factors may be and to plan ahead accordingly.”

“One thing that we all agree on is we must now focus on areas we know we need more data from; this means gathering more information about near misses – we are getting comprehensive reporting of serious injuries and deaths but need more reports of the seemingly innocuous mistakes that might have led to a serious outcome but didn’t.”

When IPAF’s accident portal was launched in 2012, the majority of reports were received from its UK membership. Now in its second decade, however reports regularly arrive from more than 25 countries. You can report a near miss or incident at www.ipafaccidentreporting.org or using IPAF’s new ePAL mobile app.