8 October 2026 by ASC Team
A site of 460 people recorded three near misses in 2025. In the same year it had 11 lost time injuries and 38 first aid cases. Those numbers do not describe a safe site with three close calls. They describe a site where close calls happen every shift and nobody writes them down. ISO 45001:2018 counts a near miss as an incident; section 14(e) of the Occupational Health and Safety Act 85 of 1993 requires every employee to report an incident that may affect their health or that caused an injury by the end of the shift; and the forklift that missed you on Tuesday is the same forklift, in the same aisle, that will not miss someone in March. This guide is about why workers do not report, what the law actually says, and what a site does to get the near misses it is already having onto paper.
What is a near miss?
ISO 45001:2018 defines an incident, in clause 3.35, as an occurrence arising out of, or in the course of, work that could or does result in injury and ill health. A note to the definition says an incident where no injury and ill health occurs, but has the potential to do so, may be referred to as a near miss, near hit or close call. So in the standard’s terms a near miss is not a separate category of event. It is an incident that happened to end well.
The OHS Act does not use the words “near miss”. It speaks of incidents, in section 14(e), where the employee’s duty is to report any incident that may affect their health or that caused an injury, and in section 24, where the employer’s duty to report to an inspector covers incidents in which a person is seriously hurt and also incidents in which the health or safety of any person was endangered, including a dangerous substance spilled, a substance under pressure released uncontrolled, machinery that fractured or failed and caused flying, falling or uncontrolled moving objects, or machinery that ran out of control. A caustic spill with nobody hurt and a conveyor that ran away are near misses in plain language and reportable incidents under section 24(1)(c).
Why do workers not report them?
Ask a hygiene team at 03h00 and you get the same four answers on every site. It takes time, and the line is waiting. Nothing happened, so there is nothing to say. The last person who reported something was asked what they had done wrong. And nothing changed after the last one, so why bother.
The first two are about design, and the site can fix them with a card, a WhatsApp number or a two minute conversation with the supervisor. The third is about blame, and section 26(1) of the Act is the law’s answer: an employer may not dismiss an employee, reduce their pay or change their position to their disadvantage because the employee gave information required under the Act or did anything they may or must do under it. Reporting under section 14 is something you must do. A site that treats a near miss report as a confession has created exactly the condition section 26 forbids, and it has also created the condition in which the next injury’s investigation will find “operator did not follow procedure” and nothing else.
The fourth answer is the one that decides everything. A report that goes into a drawer teaches the floor that reporting is pointless. A report that comes back with “we moved the hook” teaches the opposite, and the second report arrives on its own.
What happened at Mzansi in 2025?
Mzansi Fresh Meals is the case site in ASC’s courses: a chilled ready meals plant in Kempton Park with 400 people on two shifts and 60 agency workers, a training scenario built from real audit, inspection and incident patterns. No real company is named. Six electric forklifts and three pallet jacks share an aisle with the pickers. There are painted lines and a speed rule. There is no barrier.
In 2025 a forklift struck a picker in that aisle. He was off for 14 days, the incident was reported under section 24 within the seven days General Administrative Regulation 8 allows, and the investigation under regulation 9 named the cause as “operator did not follow procedure”. The investigation did not ask the pickers how often a forklift came close. Had it asked, it would have heard what the night shift supervisor, Precious Mahlangu, could have told anyone: once or twice a week, for years. None of those had been written down, because nothing happened, and because the one picker who had mentioned it in 2024 was told to keep to the lines.
Three near misses recorded for the whole site in a year. The aisle alone was producing that many a fortnight. The 14 day injury was not a surprise to anyone who worked there. It was only a surprise to the people who read the register.
What does the law say about reporting?
| Who | Duty | Where it comes from |
|---|---|---|
| Every employee | Report an unsafe or unhealthy situation to the employer or the health and safety representative as soon as practicable | Section 14(d) |
| Every employee | Report any incident that may affect their health or that caused an injury, by the end of the shift, or as soon as practicable after that if they could not | Section 14(e) |
| The employer | Inform a health and safety representative as soon as reasonably practicable of any incident in the section for which the representative was designated | Section 13(c) |
| The employer | Report to an inspector incidents in which a person is seriously hurt, a major incident, or the health or safety of any person was endangered, including spills, uncontrolled releases under pressure and machinery failures or runaways | Section 24(1); General Administrative Regulation 8: within seven days on WCL 1 or WCL 2 for the 14 day class, forthwith for a death or the most serious injuries and for the endangerment incidents |
| The employer | Keep an Annexure 1 record of every reportable incident and every incident that needed medical treatment beyond first aid, for three years, and investigate within seven days | General Administrative Regulation 9 |
| The committee | Examine every Annexure 1 record at its next meeting; discuss any incident in which a person was injured, became ill or died | General Administrative Regulation 9(4); section 20(1) |
Notice what the law does not require. It does not require the employer to keep a register of near misses that hurt nobody and endangered nobody in the section 24 sense. The near miss in the forklift aisle, where the picker stepped back in time, is not an Annexure 1 incident and need not be reported to an inspector. The law’s floor is injuries and endangerment. The rest is the site’s own choice, and it is the choice that decides whether the site learns before or after the injury.
ISO 45001 makes it less of a choice. Clause 10.2 requires a process to report, investigate and take action on incidents, and the definition includes near misses. Clause 6.1.2.1 c) requires hazard identification to take past incidents into account. Clause 5.1 k) requires top management to protect workers from reprisals when they report incidents, hazards, risks and opportunities. On a certified site, three near misses in a year beside 11 lost time injuries is an audit finding waiting to be written.
How does a site get the reports it is already missing?
Start by deciding that a near miss is anything a worker thinks could have hurt someone, and say so. Do not ask the floor to classify. Make reporting take less than a minute: a card in the pocket, a number on the wall, or the supervisor’s notebook with a time written next to each entry. Make the first response always the same, “thank you, where, when, what”, and never “what did you do”. Close every report visibly: say what was done, or say why nothing will be done yet, on the board by the clock machine, within the week. Count them, and treat the count going up as good news, because it is.
Then use them. A near miss in the forklift aisle is an input to the risk assessment the employer must establish under section 8(2)(d), and a reason to ask whether painted lines are the control a hazard of that severity deserves, when section 8(2)(b) requires the employer to eliminate or reduce a hazard before resorting to personal protective equipment and a barrier rail with gated crossings is available. The three reports that a committee examines under regulation 9(4) are the ones with blood on them. The thirty reports the site chose to collect are the ones that stop the next one.
Tell the representatives. Section 13(c) requires the employer to inform a representative of incidents in their section, and section 18(1) lets the representative identify potential hazards and make representations. A representative who gets the near miss cards for their area every week is doing the job the Act describes. A representative who hears about the injury afterwards is not.
Frequently asked questions
Must I report a near miss by law?
Section 14(d) requires you to report an unsafe or unhealthy situation as soon as practicable, and 14(e) requires you to report an incident that may affect your health or that caused an injury by the end of the shift. A near miss that showed you an unsafe situation falls under 14(d). Report it.
Must the employer report near misses to an inspector?
Only those that fall under section 24(1): where a person was seriously hurt, a major incident, or where health or safety was endangered in the ways the section lists, such as a dangerous substance spilled, an uncontrolled release under pressure, or machinery that failed or ran out of control. A close call that endangered nobody in that sense is not reportable, although a site that wants to learn records it anyway.
Can I get into trouble for reporting a near miss I caused?
Section 26 forbids the employer from dismissing or disadvantaging you for giving information required under the Act or doing what it requires. A site can still deal with a deliberate breach of its rules under its own procedures. The sites that get near misses reported separate the two: the report is thanked, the behaviour is dealt with elsewhere and rarely.
What should a near miss report contain?
Where, when, what nearly happened, who was there, and what the person thinks would stop it. A sentence each. The investigation, if it needs one, comes afterwards.
Is a near miss the same as an unsafe act?
No. A near miss is an event: the forklift came close. An unsafe act or an unsafe condition is a possible cause of it. A report that records only “unsafe act by picker” has decided the cause before looking, which is how “operator did not follow procedure” ends up in the register.
How many near misses should a site have?
Nobody can give you a number, and ASC will not invent one. What a practitioner can say is that a site with eleven lost time injuries and three recorded near misses in a year is recording a small fraction of what happens, and that the count rising is the first sign the reporting is working.
Which ASC course teaches every worker to report?
This guide is drawn from Health and Safety Awareness, FS65, a short course for every employee, agency worker and contractor’s worker, with lesson 2.2 on near misses and incidents: what to report, to whom, how fast, and why it protects you.
R495, prices in rand with no VAT added. About 3 hours, self paced, lifetime access.
- Ten lessons of eight to twelve minutes in plain words, set on a ready meals plant.
- Section 14, what the employer owes, the hazards, the hierarchy of controls, PPE, permits and lockout.
- Your representative and section 26, near misses and incidents, emergencies, contractors and your health.
- Two knowledge checks, two games, four scenario checks, two case study assessments and a final, all at 70 percent.
- A certificate of completion with a verification code.
Enrol now, or enrol your whole floor. All eight courses and the free guides sit at ISO 45001 and health and safety training. For the person who investigates, Hazard Identification, Risk Assessment and Incident Investigation, FS67, R1 495, teaches the investigation that finds causes. For a team, ask about a group arrangement on WhatsApp ASC.
Related guides: Section 14: what the law expects of every worker and Operator error is not a cause.
Sources
- Occupational Health and Safety Act 85 of 1993, sections 1, 8, 13, 14, 18, 20, 24 and 26, SAFLII consolidated text, saflii.org
- General Administrative Regulations, 2003, regulations 8 and 9 and Annexure 1, saflii.org
- ISO 45001:2018, Occupational health and safety management systems: Requirements with guidance for use (ISO), clauses 3.35, 5.1, 6.1.2.1 and 10.2
This guide is training, not legal advice. ISO 45001 is copyright and is not reproduced here. ASC is not affiliated with ISO. Last updated 8 October 2026.