From Cause to Consequences- A Highway Accident Investigation

On Monday, three workers were killed at a SUKE highway construction site, the second such incident in a month, and the third in seven months, for a total of 5 deaths. These accidents are becoming so common that Malaysians are (unfortunately) getting used to them. What’s causing these accidents? And what can be done to prevent them? Aliasman Morshidi, Vice President of the Malaysian Society for Occupational Safety & Health (MSOSH) gave us the rundown.

1. Priorities, Priorities, Priorities

With investigations still being held, we don’t want to speculate too much on our social media timelines, but we should remember that when it comes to safety, the first priority is not about business or legal compliance, but about people’s lives. This is, and should always be the main concern of not just the public, but the managers at any workplace, including factories and construction sites.

2. Too Many Theories

Road accidents can be caused by a lot of different factors, both direct and indirect. There could be human error, mechanical failure, or even environmental factors. And people tend to forget that sometimes that failures can have their own causes, or even multiple causes. What caused the human error or mechanical failure in the first place? Or was there something completely unforeseen that led to the accident?

3. Finding Who’s Accountable

Workplace hazard management tools, like the ISO 45001, are set up to prevent further accidents, or investigate accidents that have occurred. The issue here is that the SUKE highway is a high profile project with a lot of critical elements from a lot of critical roles, including the authorities, the clients, contractors, sub-contractors, consultants, and architects. If we want to get to the root of the problem, an independent committee should be set up to correctly identify the points of failure within the system.

4. Tougher Consequences

After the September 2020 accident, the main contractor and sub-contractor at the SUKE project were fined RM180,000 for failing to follow work procedures and using a non-qualified supervisor. But when the total cost of the project is RM1 billion, a fine of RM180,000 sounds like too small a punishment for even the sub-contractors. Perhaps more severe consequences, such as jail time, might encourage these contractors to take workplace safety more seriously.