Whirls,
The existing company stats were based upon past occurrences which still resulted despite training, standards, etc meeting all requirements legal and administrative. The Safety guy has a point.....by risk analysis his numbers are correct...they are at the number of hours where an accident should be expected. The training guy and CP say they have met all the requirements, engineering says nothing is amiss in his shop. Yet the forecast remains.
If you average one fatal accident per year and it is thirteen months since the last one....would not even a bean counter sense the other shoe is waiting to fall?
You are a numbers cruncher among your many talents (plucking a Banjo not being one of them I hear), statistical sampling has a place in forecasting events within a business as evidenced by the use of Actuaries by insurance companies.
Should the MD take overt action or merely cross his fingers, stroke his rabbit foot, and whistle in the dark?