Oscar Wilde said the conversation about it was the last refuge of the unimaginative, while Bill Bryson noted that it’s most striking characteristic is that there isn’t much of it. The weather – and the British obsession with talking about it – has been puzzling outsiders for decades.
Rainy weather means slippery surfaces, but this doesn’t just come with the month of April, it could be each and every month these days in the UK, but the question is, how seriously do we take the potential of slip accidents?
Carrying ‘wetness’
There is no real season for rain and cold weather these days in the UK, but it is important for us all to remember that slippery surfaces are potentially everywhere at any time of the year. In fact, a wet or slippery floor away from an entrance can be caused by simply walking through a building. As we walk from the outside into a building, we can carry wetness with us on the bottom of our shoes. Sometimes, the excess rain continues to fall off our jackets as we move through a building, which can also cause a slippery floor away from an entrance.
Alarming Statistics
You probably didn’t know this, but slip, trip, and fall accidents are the kind of accidents no one really wants to talk about. Victims often feel like people blame them for not paying attention.
No one is immune from these kinds of accidents, many victims are elderly or young children who can’t advocate for themselves, they may not have the capacity to understand what exactly happened. As a result, many accidents go unreported.
The truth is that negligence or bad building design contributes to the majority of slips, trips, and falls. These can result in serious injuries or even death. When experts investigate why some accidents happened, they often find that they could have easily been prevented.
Thousands of serious and fatal accidents happen each year, the economic cost of these accidents run into millions of pounds and slips, trips and falls are on the rise!
Several of the studies conducted during the last ten years cover trends for a specific group of people. Many of the groups studied are statistically more prone to these kinds of accidents. People working in certain jobs have a higher risk of being injured and suffering more severe and longer lasting injuries.
- Globally, slips, trips, and falls are the second leading cause of unintentional injury and death after road traffic accidents.
- Deaths from slips and falls are five times more prevalent than deaths due to a fire.
- Adults over 70, especially women, have a higher mortality rate resulting from falls than younger adults.
- A university study found that in just a three year period, falls in buildings increased by almost 15%.
- Slips, trips, and falls are the second leading cause of workplace injuries, accounting for over 20% of all injuries.
So, what is causing the increase?
It’s a complex problem with many causes; however, with an aging population, a construction boom and rampant ignorance of workplace safety, more accidents are happening:
- on construction sites where contractors and employers fail to follow health and safety regulations
- in housing or on private property that is poorly or inadequately maintained
- in nursing homes, retirement homes, care facilities, hospitals, leisure centres, hotels, shopping centres and schools – due to a lack of proper lighting, slippery flooring, trip hazards, steep stairs, balconies without railings and unsafe repair procedures.
Many studies noted that a large number of these accidents are preventable. The annually-increasing medical costs to treat preventable injuries and the economic costs to industry from slips, trips and falls in the workplace are proof that more needs to be done.
If you’d like to find out about the products we offer to help with anti-slip solutions click here, or get in touch for some advice on how you can install preventative measure for slips, trips and falls in your workplace.