• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.158-163
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• 2024

Objectives: The present paper aimed to examine whether an aging workforce is associated with an increase in work-related fatal injuries and to explore the underlying reasons for this potential increase. Material and methods: Aged workers were defined as those who were at least 55 years old. Work-related fatalities were assessed in aged and young workers who were registered with the workers' compensation system in 2021 in the Republic of Korea. Total waged workers, based on raw data from the Local Area Labor Force Survey in 2021, were used as the denominator to estimate the work-related fatality rates. Results: Most work-related fatalities in the aged workers occurred among individuals working in the "construction sector" (58.9%), those with "elementary occupations (unskilled workers)" (46.1%), and those with the employment status of "daily worker" (60.8%). The estimated incidence (0.973/10,000) of work-related fatalities among aged workers was about four times higher than that (0.239/10,000) among younger workers. "Falling," "collision," "struck by an object," and "trip and slip" were more frequent types of work-related fatalities among aged workers relative to young workers. The category of "buildings, structures, and surfaces" was a more frequent cause of work-related fatalities among aged workers than among young workers. Conclusions: Aged workers had a higher incidence of work-related fatalities than young workers. Frequent engagement in precarious employment and jobs, coupled with the greater physical vulnerability of aged workers, were likely causes of their higher level of work-related fatal injuries.

• Journal of Korean Society of Transportation
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• v.31 no.5
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• pp.16-25
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• 2013

This study deals with the relationships between flashing operation and traffic accident at signalized intersections. The objective of this study is to analyze safety effects of the yellow flashing operation at night. In pursuing the above, this study gives particular attention to evaluating the safety results from signal operation of Cheongju's 190 signalized intersections using before-after evaluation with comparison group that are categorized by highway function. The main results are as follow. First, the numbers of traffic accidents and of fatalities/injuries in two highway types (arterial and collector road) have increased after operating the yellow flashing signal at night. Second, the numbers of accidents, fatalities/injuries, severe accidents and of fatalities/severe injuries in group A(arterial) have increased by 19%, 36%, 15% and 14%, respectively. Finally, the numbers of accidents, fatalities/injuries, severe accidents and fatalities/severe injuries in group B (collector) have increased by 50%, 64%, 41% and 77%, respectively.

• Transportation Technology and Policy
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.111-117
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• 2012

• International Journal of Highway Engineering
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.1-12
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• 2007

Roads in Korea can be classified into four types according to their responsible authorities. For example, Motorway is constructed, managed, and operated by the Korea Highway Corporation. Ministry of Construction and Transportation is in charge of National Highway, and Province Roads are run by each province government. Urban/county Roads are run by corresponding local government. This study analyses the trends of road accidents for each road type. For this purpose, the numbers of accidents, fatalities, and injuries are compared for each road type for last 15 years. The result shows that Urban/County Roads are the most dangerous, while Motorways are the safest, when we simply compare the numbers of accidents, fatalities, and injuries. However, when we compare these numbers by dividing by total road length, National Highway becomes the most dangerous while Province Roads becomes the safest. In the case of road accidents, fatalities, and injuries per vehicle km, which is known as the most objective comparison measure, it turns out that National Highway is the most dangerous roads again. This study also developed time series models to estimate trends of fatalities for each road type. These models will be useful when we set up or evaluate targets of national road safety.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.14-19
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• 2011

Conveyors cause a high serious and fatal injuries in the industry. Every year people are hurt or killed as a result of accidents on conveyors. Most accidents occur during operation and maintenance when employees are working on moving, unguarded conveyors or when the conveyors starts unexpectedly. In 2008 there were 486 reported injures ranging from fatalities to injures. Of these 486 reported accidents, 8 were fatalities, 66.9%(325) of reported accidents occurred in manufacturing company and 43.8%(213) occurred at the belt conveyors. The objective of this study was to invent the remote emergency stop device because industrial accidents mainly occur at blind spots where usually do not have any safety guard or device rather than the normal working places. In principle, this new device will use with the existing safety system. Then, it will be powerful safety system for preventing injuries related with conveyors.

• Journal of the Korea Safety Management & Science
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.135-141
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• 2015

According to the statistics, occupational fatal injuries by mobile cranes were about 12 per year in whole industrial. Mobile cranes are widely used in various parts of industries to improve the efficiency of the work. However considerable number of fatal injuries happen each year during the operation of the machines. In this study, the current regulations to be adequate in industrial site have to be renew in order to prevent the fatal injuries by mobile cranes. Fatal injury analyses were conducted with several accident cases by the mobile cranes. For each accident, the causes of the injuries were examined and proper safety measures were proposed. In this study, the mobile crane showed a high fatality rate in industrial accidents and no detailed cause analysis of fatal accidents was conducted in terms of unsafe acts or conditions. This study proposed a revision of the standard guideline as an accident prevention measures through in-depth analysis of fatal accidents. First, among the mainly five machines caused the accidents, mobile crane was higher for the second showed 0.6% for number of fatalities compared to number of mobil cranes and for the third showed 11% for number of fatalities compared to number of injuries. Second, main cause of cognitive engineering agenda was visibility, responsibility, affordance. As the measures to prevent accidents before starting operation, alternative revision for the fool proof including visibility, responsibility, affordance etc. for the fool proof measures was proposed. Third, alternative revision as cognitive accident prevention for the fail safe measures was proposed.

• Journal of Korean Society of Transportation
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.21-27
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• 2012

This study deals with the relationships between signal operation and traffic accident of signalized intersections. The objective of this study is to analyze the traffic accident reduction effects on the operation of all-red clearance interval (ARCI). This study gives particular attentions to evaluating the traffic accident reduction effects of ARCI at 37 signalized intersections in Cheongju using before-after evaluation with comparison group. The main results are as follows. First, the number of traffic accidents, fatalities and injuries has changed before operating ARCI and thereafter. Second, the result of before-and-after evaluation with comparison group showed that the number of accidents was reduced by 20.0% and that the number of fatalities and injuries was reduced by 28.0%. Finally, reduction effects from operating ARCI were evaluated to be 6.0~35.0% in the number of accidents and 18.0~37.0% in the number of fatalities and injuries.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.62-69
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• 2019

Korean shipbuilding companies have taken many efforts for safety over the years by developing Health, Safety & Environment (HSE) Management Systems, Procedures, Training, and studying Programs for prevention of incidents. As a result, the shipbuilding industry has succeeded in reducing overall injury rates. Nevertheless, the industry also noticed that incident rates are still not at zero and more importantly, serious injuries and fatalities are still occurring. One factor that may be attributing to this is the lack of managing potential severity during incident investigations, most incident investigations are implemented based on the actual result. Generally, each shipbuilding company develops their customized incident investigation programs and these are also commonly being focused on actual result. This study aimed to develop a shift in strategy toward safety to classify the criteria of potential severity from any incidents and manage that to prevent any recurrence or causing any serious injuries or fatalities in the shipbuilding industry. Several global energy companies have already developed potential severity management tools and applied them in their incident investigations. In order to verify the necessity of improvement for current systems, a case study and comparative analysis between a domestic shipbuilding company and several global energy companies from foreign countries was implemented and comparison of two incident investigation cases from specific offshore projects was conducted to measure the value of a potential severity system. Also, a checklist was established from the data of fatalities and serious injuries in recent 5 years that occurred in Korea shipbuilding industry and a proposal to verify high potential incidents in the incident investigation process and comparative analysis between the assessment by appling proposed checklist and the assessment from a global energy company by using their own system was implemented. As a measure to prevent any incidents, it is required to focus on potential severity assessment during the incident investigation rather than to only control actual result. Hence, this study aims to propose a realistic plan which enables to improve the existing practices of incident investigation and control in the shipbuilding industry.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.63-70
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• 2013

Objectives: This study is planned to assess the trend of occupational injuries in Korea from 2001 to 2010. Methods: Ten years of occupational injuries, from 2001 to 2010, were analyzed in order to investigate the changing profiles according to the various characteristics of injuries; economic sectors, age of the injured, and type of injuries. The changing profile of occupational injuries was investigated by comparison with an index-created relative value based on the number of cases of reference category. Results: The fatalities of construction, forest, agriculture, and service show the increasing trend. The nonfatal occupational injuries of the manufacturing sector were higher than those of other sectors in every year but the fatal occupational injuries of construction workers were higher than those of the manufacturing sector. Occupational injuries occurring due to amputation and those of slip and trip increased. The number of occupational injuries for the worker groups of 24 years old and below decreased and 45 years old and above increased. In comparison to the figure of fall from height, the figures of slip and trip or caught in equipment are higher in every calendar year. Conclusion: This study find out construction, forest, agriculture, and service sectors, aged worker with 45 years old and over can be target population for the strategies of occupational safety.

• International conference on construction engineering and project management
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• 2022.06a
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• pp.579-586
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• 2022

Modular building is a fast-growing construction method, mainly due to its ability to drastically reduce the amount of time it takes to construct a building and produce higher-quality buildings at a more consistent rate. However, while modular construction is relatively safer than traditional construction methods, workers are still exposed to hazards that lead to injuries and fatalities, and these hazards could be controlled using emerging smart technologies. Currently, limited information is available at the intersection of modular construction, safety risk, and smart safety technologies. This paper aims to investigate what aspects of modular construction are most dangerous for its workers, highlight specific risks in its processes, and propose ways to utilize smart technologies to mitigate these safety risks. Findings from the archival analysis of accident reports in Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) Fatality and Catastrophe Investigation Summaries indicate that 114 significant injuries were reported between 2002 and 2021, of which 67 were fatalities. About 72% of fatalities occurred during the installation phase, while 57% were caused by crushing and 85% of crash-related incidents were caused by jack failure/slippage. IoT-enabled wearable sensing devices, computer vision, smart safety harness, and Augment and Virtual Reality were identified as potential solutions for mitigating identified safety risks. The present study contributes to knowledge by identifying important safety trends, critical safety risk factors and proposing practical emerging methods for controlling these risks.