Enhanced safety measures have seen industrial accidents on Highways Department projects fall 80% in a decade. However, the department is not complacent with the improvement and is working to further cut injuries with a new safety strategy.

The department's Safety & Environmental Advisory Unit is testing a new scheme in which it takes part in highway works at an earlier stage to tailor-make safety measures and better prevent accidents during a project.

Safety scrutiny: Highways Department Safety & Environmental Adviser Johnny Chu analyses the trend of industrial accidents and inspects safety measures at construction sites.

Early intervention

Department Senior Engineer Johnny Chu recently told news.gov.hk that traditionally formulation of detailed safety measures start just before a project reaches the construction stage. However, such late intervention means only limited remedies could be formed.

To achieve better risk assessment and accident prevention the unit is now working to intervene in the preliminary design stage to tailor-make safety measures to safeguard workers during a project's construction, operation and maintenance stages.

Mr Chu said as the scope of civil engineering can be very wide, works can involve land, sea, air and underground tasks, and even building a man-made islands. These require different construction methods and locations presenting different safety problems.

"Studying the possible risks and dangers at the project-design stage allows us a thorough consideration of safety factors leading to more informed decisions," Mr Chu said.

Trials are underway on works for the Central Kowloon Route, Gascoigne Road flyover, Gloucester Road elevated walkway, Fan Kam Road and Tai Po Road. Mr Chu hopes the initiative will cut accidents in these and all future projects.

Called the Safety Advisory Unit when it was formed in 1995, the unit saw accident rates for local construction industry and highways contracts of 300 and 100 cases for every 1,000 workers a year. The figures meant a worker on a highways project had a 10% chance a year of getting injured and would be exposed to the possibility of having four industrial accidents in his lifetime.

"Last year the department's site accident rate fell to 10.1 cases for every 1,000 workers, meaning a worker had a 0.4% chance of having an accident during his work life. Although the figure has fallen 80% in a decade, I hope it can drop further and not a single mishap will happen," Mr Chu said.

Culture change

Aiming to promote a site safety culture the department implemented the Pay for Safety Scheme in 1996 to change the construction sector's apathy on site safety.

"We did not want such risky situations to continue so we decided to subsidise the work safety measures contractors undertake if they meet all the contractual safety requirements. The amount can be up to 2% of the contract sum," the Safety & Environmental Advisor said.

He added the Government was the first to introduce such a plan which has worked well and been widely welcomed with some private developers now following the incentive in their own projects.

Under the plan the department's requirements are tighter than those of the law, Mr Chu said. For example, a contractor must prepare a safety plan and hire a full-time registered safety officer if its site has not less than 50 workers, while the law requires a registered safety officer be hired by a site of 100 or more workers.

The safety committee formed for the site must be regularly attended by the contractor's senior management and frontline staff. Highways contractors must also provide better training for staff.

"We inspect and monitor site performance and suggest areas of improvement to reduce the likelihood of site accidents and ensure contractors abide by the law and contractual requirements," Mr Chu said.

"Like many previous initiatives this safety management model is adopted by public works projects first. When the construction sector gets adapted and the mode can run smoothly a law can be introduced then."

Better awareness

With 10 major Government infrastructure projects and other small and medium-sized works in the pipeline, Mr Chu expects busy times for his unit but a safer environment for workers.

"Many accidents result from unfamiliarisation with the working environment and procedures, or lack of safety knowledge. Launching many projects at the same time can lead to a manpower shortage and an influx of inexperienced workers. So we must prepare new training programmes and pay special attention to worker behaviour," Mr Chu said.

With the leap in safety awareness in the last decade, workers are now willing to wear helmets, and construction sites are more tidy, dry and stable, leading to fewer minor accidents like slips.

Mr Chu hopes the safe-work culture can be more widely promulgated and accepted.