Cintas Corporation recently conducted a telephone survey with Harris Interactive regarding the indirect risks of slip-and-fall accidents in restaurants. The survey revealed that 1 in 3 Americans would be unlikely to dine at a restaurant if they knew that an accident had recently occurred there.
With these ratios, over 60 million Americans choose to eat somewhere else other than a restaurant that has recently had an accident.
What Do the Survey Results Really Say About Accidents in a Restaurant?
This was based on the telephone survey that Harris Interactive conducted with 1,000 adults over 18 years-old in specific regions of the US. Adults in the Northeast were more likely to forego eating out at a restaurant that had a recent slip and fall than those in the Midwest or South.
The Northeast reported up to 23 percent would not dine at a restaurant with an accident, while the Midwest resulted in 13 percent and the South came in at 11 percent.
On the other hand, gender and age factored into the survey less significantly than geographical location.
Safety and Injuries in Food Service and Profitability
Director of Marketing and Strategy, David Collette of Cintas Foodservice stated, “We’ve always known that slip-and-fall accidents result in increased costs due to litigation or injury, but this research shows that the cost of an accident might be even greater than initially thought.”
To illustrate this problem, on an annual basis 3 million food service employees and 1 million guests are injured. According to the National Floor and Safety Institute (NSFI) the injuries are increasing 10 percent each year.
Preventing Future Accidents
The most significant part of these statistics indicates that while the economy picks up, so will the restaurant business. Putting a good safe floor program in place will help long term costs associated with future business opportunities.
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