Glossary
What is a Near Miss?
A near miss is an unplanned event that caused no injury and no damage, but was capable of doing so had the timing or position been slightly different. A tool dropping close to a worker, or a vehicle stopping a step short of a pedestrian — both are near misses: the outcome was clean, the underlying cause is still there.
Glossary Published 3 min read
01Why it matters
Why it matters
A near miss is the only information that arrives before harm does. The conditions that produced it — a narrow aisle, poor lighting, an unclear procedure, time pressure — did not change simply because the outcome happened to be clean this time. Mature sites therefore treat it as a free warning rather than as “nothing happened”.
The practical problem is that most near misses never arrive at all. Some are noticed by nobody; some are noticed only by the person involved, who carries on working; and some are noticed but not reported, out of concern the report will be read as an admission of fault. The result is that the most valuable preventive indicator is also the thinnest dataset on most sites.
02Examples
Examples of near misses
- A tool falls from an elevated platform and lands two metres from a worker.
- A forklift brakes sharply in front of a pedestrian who crossed from a blind corner.
- A worker slips on a wet floor and recovers balance without falling.
- A load tilts during lifting and settles before it drops.
- A person enters a restricted area during a loading operation and leaves before anything comes near them.
03Reporting
How reporting is managed
| Step | What it means |
|---|---|
| Blame-free reporting | Reporting the event, not the person — any system read as a disciplinary tool sees its data dry up within weeks. |
| Fast, simple logging | If reporting takes more than a minute, most incidents will not be reported. |
| Root-cause analysis | The question is not “who made the mistake?” but “what made this possible?” |
| A control with an owner and a date | An event that produces no action becomes a statistic, not an improvement. |
| Feedback to the reporter | Someone who sees the result of their report will report again. |
04In a Saudi context
In a Saudi context
On sites running contractor crews, near miss reporting is weakened by an additional factor: a worker does not report directly to the site owner but through their own company’s supervisor, and the report may be read as affecting the contractor’s performance evaluation. The result is that events occurring where two crews’ work overlaps — the most dangerous kind — are the least likely to reach the site record.
06The product connection
How this relates to SquintPRO
The biggest gap in near miss data is that it depends on a person noticing the event and then choosing to report it. Analysing the existing camera feed captures part of those events as they happen — an entry into a restricted area, a pedestrian approaching an equipment path — and raises them as a documented case without depending on an individual decision to report. Read about the platform.
From the insights library
Continue in the glossary
More safety terms
Every term in this cluster, grouped by measurement, permits, hazards and equipment.
Glossary termPPE
Why it is the last layer of protection rather than the first, and when each item is required.
Glossary termRisk assessment and controls
Steps, the hierarchy of controls, and why a near miss belongs in the same review.
PracticeThe Interkey industrial safety practice
How continuous camera observation catches events a near-miss report depends on a person noticing first.
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