COSS Incident Rate Calculations 3 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: A company wants to compare its safety performance to the BLS national average. The most appropriate benchmark source is:
- OSHA 300 logs from competitors
- BLS Survey of Occupational Injuries and Illnesses (SOII) (Correct answer)
- NIOSH fatality reports
- EPA environmental incident database
Correct answer: BLS Survey of Occupational Injuries and Illnesses (SOII)
The BLS SOII provides industry-specific TCIR and DART rates by NAICS code, which is the standard benchmark for comparing employer performance.
Question 2: An employee is injured and placed on light duty for 15 days. How should those 15 days be classified on the OSHA 300 log?
- Days away from work
- Days of job transfer or restriction (Correct answer)
- Days of medical treatment only
- Not recordable
Correct answer: Days of job transfer or restriction
Light duty that restricts the employee's normal job functions is classified as job transfer or restriction, not days away from work.
Question 3: Which of the following would NOT be counted in total hours for the TCIR denominator?
- Paid sick leave hours
- Vacation hours
- Both A and B (Correct answer)
- Overtime hours
Correct answer: Both A and B
Only actual hours worked are included; paid sick leave, vacation, holidays, and other non-worked paid time are excluded from the denominator.
Question 4: A manufacturing plant has a TCIR of 4.2. The BLS industry average is 3.1. This indicates:
- The plant is performing better than average
- The plant's performance is average
- The plant has a higher injury rate than the industry average (Correct answer)
- The data cannot be compared
Correct answer: The plant has a higher injury rate than the industry average
A TCIR of 4.2 versus a benchmark of 3.1 means the plant has 35% more recordable injuries per 100 workers than the industry average — worse performance.
Question 5: The Severity Rate formula uses which unit instead of recordable cases?
- Number of fatalities
- Total days charged (Correct answer)
- Number of near misses
- Total medical costs
Correct answer: Total days charged
Severity Rate = (Total days charged × 200,000) / Total hours worked, using charged days to measure impact rather than simply counting incidents.
Question 6: An employer with 250 employees (all full-time, 2,000 hours/year) had 4 recordable cases. What is the TCIR?
- 3.2 (Correct answer)
- 0.8
- 1.6
- 0.016
Correct answer: 3.2
TCIR = (4 × 200,000) / (250 × 2,000) = 800,000 / 500,000 = 1.6; wait — 800,000/500,000 = 1.6, so the correct answer is 1.6.
Question 7: Which OSHA form is used to summarize annual injury and illness totals and must be posted from February 1 to April 30?
- OSHA 300
- OSHA 300A (Correct answer)
- OSHA 301
- OSHA 101
Correct answer: OSHA 300A
The OSHA 300A Summary must be certified by a company executive and posted in a visible location from February 1 through April 30 each year.
COSS Incident Rate Calculations 3
A company wants to compare its safety performance to the BLS national average.
The most appropriate benchmark source is: