Posted By June-bug
G'day,

What is the difference between an accident and an incident?

Thanks in advance.

Posted By Phil Rose
IOSH 'principles' book says (not that I am saying this is set in stone)

Incident - is a sequence of events or actions. It does not necessarily have a definable start or finish.

Accident - is an incident plus it's consequences (injury, property damage, interruption, delay)

Posted By TonyB
Come on everybody lets get a bit technical. OK organisations use the terms to mean different things but IOSH, NEBOSH and the HSE have (almost) the same definitions

Accident - unplanned, unwanted event that results in a loss. (HSE talk only about injury or ill health)

Incident/Near Miss - unplanned, unwanted event that had the potential to cause a loss.

and for completeness -

Unsafe Condition (circumstance) - a condition that, if left uncorrected could clearly give rise to an incident or accident.

TonyB

(I await the put down!)

Posted By Ron Hunter
incident: from the Latin in cidere = that which falls, happens,occurs. Hence my earlier stab. True to say though that the 2 terms are generally used interchangeably these days.

Posted By Pete48
"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said in a rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less."
"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean different things."
Lewis Carroll. Through the Looking Glass.

In other words it all depends on why you want to know. In an H&S sense they both need reporting and investigating. An accident is easier to get reported because someone has been hurt and anyone would easily understand the need to report it. It has become comfortable over the past 20 odd years to also refer to incident reporting in order to capture those events where no personal injury has been sustained.
An FLT strikes a barrier or racking and only the rack or FLT suffers damage=incident. Same scenario only this time the load on the FLT falls and injures 2 people=accident.
The starting point is exactly the same; it is just the consequence that is different.