Accident Patterns for Occupational Falls in the Steel Structures Industry

[[abstract]]Falling ranks the top of death number in major occupational disasters in Taiwan due to certain major factors. For instance, business units give unimportance towards labor’s health and safety and the implementation of contracted work management, and on the other hands, self-employed operators are lack of security awareness. In recent years, with the government’s vigorous promotion of construction safety, the labor safety consciousness has risen, resulting in a significant decrease trend of occupational hazards. However, it is still at the top of occupational hazards in the industry of construction. The reason why it is prone to disasters in the construction industry is because the construction site itself is still an unfinished structure. With the progress of the project, not only the construction site terrain changes, there are also temporary openings and gaps. Without timely protection or closure in such dangerous conditions, they are likely to become dangerous factors that lead to operators’ accidental falls. In addition, the work sites are not on flat land. High-altitude operations increase the degree of danger of the work sites. In the event of falling, the responsive time of human beings is short and the fall is directly to the ground. These major casualties and financial losses are all due to the business units’ ignorance of necessary safety protection facilities during the construction period. In order to reduce the incidence rate of falling fatalities, this study proposes preventive measures and the use of safety protection tools which include anti-fall facilities, such as safety network, guardrails, barriers, covers, and so on as well as the actual use of helmets and safety belts. In the future, the safety management technology shall still be fortified so as to enhance the business units’ disaster prevention abilities. The key to it is on the correct concept, appropriate pre-planning, and detailed safety and health facilities and budget as well as the correct selection, installation and usage of anti-fall facilities so as to guarantee labors’ safety