**Root causes of habitual violations and preventive measures

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*Inherent violations refer to those behaviors that are considered normal in production work and violate the Electrical Safety Work Procedures as well as various rules and regulations. These violations of safety regulations are passed down from master to apprentice, from one person to another; fortunately, they turn into \"experience,\" and their inherent concealment often goes unnoticed by people. According to available data, 95% of the accidents that occur in power companies are caused by violations of rules and regulations, and 78% of these accidents are resulting from habitual violations. The lessons learned at the cost of blood and lives once again show that *inconsistent violation of regulations has become the main cause of accidents in power enterprises. I. *Root causes of habitual violations 　　*Habitual violations are mainly manifested as improper operations and incorrect instructions, such as working without proper permits, working without supervision, and failing to implement the required safety measures. Its occurrence is caused by various factors, but ultimately it is due to issues related to ideology and awareness, as well as supervision and management. 　　(1) A weak safety awareness is the ideological root of habitual violations. Consciousness has a proactive effect on matter; this is a fundamental principle of Marx’s philosophy. At electrical construction sites, workers, as the main actors in production activities, their mindset and psychological factors influence the ways and methods of work at all times. In other words, ideological violations are manifested through behavioral violations. To investigate the objective and true situation of front-line employees, we randomly selected 50 employees from the High Voltage Room, Metrology Room, Chemistry Room, On-site Calibration Room, and Indoor Verification Room under the Electric Power Research Institute as samples (accounting for 42.7% of the total number of front-line workers), and developed objective questionnaires for the survey. 　 The mindset of hoping for luck. Irregular operations can easily lead to accidents, yet some people fail to realize this; they rely on luck at all times, thinking that an accident doesn’t necessarily occur every time such irregular practices are employed. They take risks when necessary and try to find shortcuts, believing that if anything goes wrong, it won’t affect them. Data shows that 17% of the respondents believe such attitudes are most prominent in *involuntary violations. The \"1.7\" accident that occurred at a grassroots unit within the company’s system in Jiangjin was caused by the personnel in charge of high-voltage testing seeking convenience; they ignored the safety measure requiring white tape to be used around the secondary cable ends, thinking that they could remember their locations based on memory alone. This led to overvoltage protection being activated in the #2 main transformer, resulting in the tripping of the switches on all three sides of that transformer. Similarly, the cause of the 2004 Changshou “5.18” accident was exactly the same as that of the “1.7” accident. A mindset of seeking quick success and instant benefits. Some employees, once they arrive at the work site, work in a hasty and rough manner. Believing that they possess certain technical skills, they ignore the rules and regulations and rely on their experience to get the job done, rarely listening to others’ advice. With this mindset, if no accidents occur, it’s fine; but once an accident happens, it tends to be serious. In the survey sample, it was considered that such thoughts accounted for 26% of the total number of ideological violations. This year, the \"1.26\" accident that occurred within the company’s system was caused by the person in charge of the work trying to rush things through, thereby seriously violating the relevant provisions of the Electrical Safety Regulations and the rules for substation operation. He illegally took it upon himself to operate the equipment on behalf of the duty personnel, which led to the tripping of the 500kV switches 5032 and 5043, resulting in a serious misoperation accident. The mindset of acting intentionally despite knowing the consequences. In the survey sample, such thoughts were considered to account for 46% of the total number of ideological violations. This type of employee misinterprets the spirit of fearing neither hardship nor death; they hold beliefs such as \"One who is timid cannot become a general\" and \"As long as one dares to take risks, there is no obstacle too great to overcome\", regarding violations of rules as a form of personal heroism. They have been in the industry for a long time, possess extensive experience in committing \"violations\" on site, and can explain safety regulations thoroughly in various safety-related fields; yet in practice they fail to act accordingly. Knowing that their actions are illegal, they still proceed as they please out of a desire for convenience and fear of hassle. Therefore, some long-serving veteran employees are the “hard-hit areas” where such ideas are rampant. 　　Thoughts of blind ignorance. Among the survey samples, those who believed that ignorance was the cause of improper thinking accounted for 11% of the total. This mindset is mainly reflected in the “three types of people,” namely temporary workers, young workers, and recent graduates who have just started working. These people work in a hasty and impatient manner; they do not have a thorough understanding of safety regulations, lack experience, and have poor safety awareness. They are also insufficiently aware of the unsafe factors present in their work as well as the dangers associated with various violations of rules. During the production process, once violations are detected, it is often not clear what exactly the violations are. Violations caused by such psychological influences are mostly operational violations. (II) Management “blind spots” lead to the persistent occurrence of habitual violations. 　For business managers, the biggest challenge in eliminating violations is that *inherent violations tend to recur; why do such violations keep resurfacing despite repeated attempts to stop them? The reason is that the management and assessment systems fail to target the core of habitual violations. Some safety managers lack the necessary competence; they severely underestimate the importance of safety management, believing that a good safety record over the long term means there will be no problems. As a result, they neglect safety training, which leads to a gradual decline in the quality of safety management at every level. Some safety managers fail to conduct safety inspections in a proper or thorough manner; sometimes, out of considerations for personal relationships, they overlook violations that should be strictly addressed, and even turn a blind eye to recurring violations, thereby creating potential hazards that could lead to accidents. II. Characteristics of inertial violations *Inertial violations can persist and spread over time at construction sites, owing to their stubbornness, potentiality, infectivity, and exclusivity. It is these characteristics that make it difficult to eradicate this hazard to safety.* 　　*Inherent violations are persistent. *Inherent violations are driven by certain psychological factors and represent a habitual mode of behavior; as such, they exhibit characteristics of persistence and frequency. As long as the psychology behind *inherent reckless behavior remains unchanged and such reckless actions are not corrected, these behaviors will keep recurring. It is only when the person suffers harm or faces punishment that sufficient attention is paid to the issue. *Inherent violations have potentiality. Some *inherent violations of rules are often the result of them having become habitual*. For example, signs on the barriers at the work site such as “Do not cross” and “Work in progress” are ignored; people continue to work in violation of regulations, and it is only after an accident occurs that they regret it. 　　*Inherent violations are contagious. The bad *habits of some employees not only affect their own safe work, but also impact the employees around them. Connecting the test power supply in an inertial manner on-site is a common practice in many work sites. If such behavior is not stopped in a timely manner, other employees are likely to follow suit. Even some new recruits may mistake this approach for the correct one and blindly imitate it, without realizing that they are on the verge of danger. *Inherent violations are exclusive. Some employees with severe habitual violations simply refuse to learn or abide by safety regulations; they always think that their habitual methods are \"effective\", while considering safety regulations to be unnecessary. As a result, they severely hinder the implementation of safety regulations and systems, putting production safety at serious risk.