Charles perrow is professor of sociology at yale university his other books include the radical attack on business organizational analysis a sociological view complex organizations a critical essay and the aids disaster the failure of organizations in new york and the nation normal accidents is a penetrating study of catastrophes and near catastrophes in several high risk industries. Doi 102307 2392945 corpus id 112649509 normal accidents living with high risk technologies articleohare1986normalal titlenormal accidents living with high risk technologies authorm ohare and h kunreuther and j linnerooth and j lathrop and h atz and s macgill and c mandl and m a schwartz and michael thompson and c perrow journaljournal of policy analysis and . Book description normal accidents analyzes the social side of technological risk charles perrow argues that the conventional engineering approach to ensuring safety building in more warnings and safeguards fails because systems complexity makes failures inevitable he asserts that typical precautions by adding to complexity may help create . Normal accidents is a testament to the value of rigorous thinking when applied to a critical problem nick pidgeon nature normal accidents is a penetrating study of catastrophes and near catastrophes in several high risk industriesmr perrow writes lucidly and makes it clear that normal accidents are the inevitable consequences of the way we launch industrial ventures