A study of construction safety attitudes in repair, maintenance, alteration, addition (RMAA) works in Hong Kong

Abstract

The construction industry is always the main contributor to industrial accidents among different industry. Although safety performance of the construction industry in Hong Kong has continued to improve, the accident rate of Repair, Maintenance, minor Alteration and Addition works (RMAA) sector under construction industry is kept increasing. It properly goes in line with the expansion of market in RMAA in recent years. This emerges the alarm of safety problems in RMAA, especially for the fatal accidents, should press us a need to analyze the safety attitudes in RMAA works in Hong Kong. This dissertation aims to identify causes of accidents in RMAA works; and to investigate the safety attitudes and behavior of different groups of people towards RMAA works. The causes of accidents and factors affecting construction safety performance are identified by literature review. Human unsafe behavior and organizational factors are the important factors leading to causes of accidents. Personal characteristics may influence safety behavior. Besides, the current government policies and legislations for the construction industry are also reviewed. Questionnaires survey has been conducted with various construction practitioners to examine the causes of accidents and safety attitudes towards RMAA works. By using quantitative approach, statistics analysis has been carried out in this study. The results show that low safety awareness of RMAA workers is the major underlying cause of accident. Organizational factor also influences the safety performance. Different personal characteristics (ages, years of construction experience, education level, with and without RMAA work experience) have different safety attitudes towards RMAA works significantly.