Citation

Emre Gürcanli G. Safety Sci. 2009; 47(3): 364.

Affiliation

Technical University of Istanbul, Civil Engineering Faculty, Construction Management Department, 80626 Maslak, Istanbul, Turkey (egurcanli@ins.itu.edu.tr).

Copyright

(Copyright © 2009, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.ssci.2008.07.001

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This paper aims to depict the characteristics of the third party and child fatalities on or near the construction sites and to reveal the accident causation, the parties which are at fault and the negligence behind them. Nine hundred and fifty six expert witness reports, which were submitted to criminal and labour courts, were investigated and third party and child fatalities were analyzed according to causation, type of construction and the time at which they occurred. According to the court decisions, parties at fault in the accidents were discussed by revealing the primary negligent acts of the parties. One hundred and twenty two (98 fatalities) of 971 victims were third parties and 69 (58 fatalities) of 122 victims were children (under age 12). All non-employee (50.0%) fatalities and 48.3% of child fatalities were caused by falls from height. After building/structure collapse (18.4% for third parties and 17.2% for children), the figures show that drowning ranks third. Five most hazardous work areas (82.6 of all deaths) were residential/commercial (39 cases, 39.8%), institutional (15 cases, 15.3%), small buildings (12 cases, 12.2%), wells (9 cases, 9.2%) and channels (6 cases, 6.1%). The vast majority of child deaths (79.3%) occurred on these zones. The time interval of 16:00-18:00 was of particular interest, 8 of 10 third party fatalities that occurred between these hours were of children. Additionally, this paper discusses the most hazardous conditions and safety violations along with legislative responsibilities and obligations of employers, employees and third parties. The safety requirements and legal provisions that were stipulated by the Turkish legislation were described and discussed.

Language: en