Do we have to wait until a serious injury occurs before correcting environmental and behavioral conditions? Of course not. I'm sure you're well aware of the value of investigating a "near miss." After all, the only difference between most near-miss experiences and an injury is timing or a few inches. Searching for root causes of near-miss experiences and following up with corrective action will certainly lead to lower injury rates.
But there's a problem with near-miss reporting. People don't like to do it. And so opportunities for proactive injury prevention are missed. I think there's a better way to focus preventive efforts, which I want to discuss in this article.