Injuries/ill health stats

This page provides information on injuries reported under the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations (RIDDOR) 1995 to the HSE and Local Authorities and estimated cases of work-related ill health.

Reported injuries in the maintenance and repair of motor vehicles (SIC 50200)

The industry has fatal and ‘all injuries’ accident rates higher than the average for the whole of manufacturing. Over the 5 years from 1998 to 2003, nearly 10,000 injuries were reported to the HSE and Local Authorities (LAs) from businesses where the main activity was MVR. During the same period there were 25 fatal injuries to employees or self-employed persons and over 2,200 other major/serious injuries, some involving members of the public. The actual figures for serious and less serious injuries will be much higher than those quoted due to considerable under reporting to the enforcing authorities.

The main causes of fatal injury during the period were:

Trapped by something collapsing/overturning -eg vehicles falling off jacks or jacks failing
Struck by moving vehicle – eg by vehicles being driven in/out/around premises
Struck by moving / falling object eg. vehicles falling off inspection lifts, loads off fork lift trucks
Fire/explosion – eg through mishandling of petrol; (NOTE: such incidents invariably result in extensive damage to property, including customers vehicles

The following tables show the numbers of injuries reported to the HSE and Local Authorities (LAs), for the 5 years from 1998 to 2003. The figures for 1998 to 2002 are Final (F) and for 2002/03 Provisional (P). The all injuries Incidence Rates per 100,000 employees are also included.

For further information on the main causes of accidents in MVR see MVR Main causes of injury and the summaries of real incidents of these kinds of accident under MVR From experience.

(a) RIDDOR reported injuries to employees and the self-employed 1998/99 - 2002/03P

	1998/99F	1999/2000F	2000/01F	2001/02F	2002/03P
Fatal	5	4	4	7	5
Major injury	448	470	419	435	438
Over 3 day	1,471	1,534	1,575	1,528	1,596
** Incidence Rate	1,300	1,216	1,235	1,170	1,223

** per 100,000 employees

(b) RIDDOR reported injuries to employees and the self-employed by Kind of accident 1998/99 - 2002/03P

	1998/99F	1999/2000F	2000/01F	2001/02F	2002/03P
Handling/Sprains	560	558	581	627	694 34%)
Slips and Trips	338	347	368	422	427 (21%)
Struck by	323	423	392	316	344 (17%)
Falls from Height	227	228	189	133	120 (6%)
Strike/Step on	119	97	116	112	108 (5%)
Machinery	79	78	64	81	63 (3%)
Transport	86	85	95	75	63 (3%)

Estimated cases of work-related ill health in the sale, maintenance and repair of motor vehicles (SIC50)

The following Table shows the average number of estimated cases of work-related ill health from 2000 to 2002 and the corresponding Incidence Rates of ill health per 100,000 employees.
(See http://www.hse.gov.uk/statistics/index.htm for a full list of cases and rates tables).

	2000-2002 Sale, maintenance & repair of motor vehicles (SIC 50)
	Average cases	Rate/100,000
Musculoskeletal (All) (incl. back/upper limb)	32*	6*
Dermatitis	68	13
Asthma	12	2

* Data based on less than 10 actual cases over the 3 years 1999 – 2001 and, therefore, prone to inaccuracy.