A Survey of Rural Utility Safety Issues and Practices

There exists an old cliché that reads, "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” a very true statement for utility operations. It's reported that utilities incur millions of dollars in costs annually, most of which are covered by insurance, as a result of accidents. This includes lost time productivity of injured employees, higher insurance rates, and higher workman compensation rates. The National Safety Council (NSC) Injury Facts 1998 data indicates there were 4.72 incident rates per 100 employees for the electric services industry. From that number, there were 2.47 workers per 100 employees who experienced a lost work day as the result of an accident. The average number of lost work days per injured employee reported in this publication was 57.