Preamble
I have worked in many companies that I would describe as extremely safety focused and yet they still have incidents.  The incident investigation will always reveal a cause.  Some causes are more obvious than others but there is always a preventable cause.  It may be human,  it may be equipment, it may be process.  But always preventable.

Content
There was a contract electrical  Engineer working for me and he was seconded to go to China to install a specialised piece of machinery.  He was away for about 2 weeks.
When he returned, he was full of stories of absolutely horrendous safety and working conditions at the plant.  Including live, exposed wires, random holes and excavations in the floor with no barriers or warnings, poor lifting practise, etc, etc.
But the strange thing he noticed was that during his time there, all of the construction and installation workers, and there where many, from different countries, companies and trades had a built in self survival mentality which allowed them to work around these safety issues.  They instinctively recognised that this was a very dangerous work site and they took all necessary precautions to protect themselves during the working day.  Nothing was taken for granted, every step, every action was checked and double checked.  The work happened and there were no incidents.  At least not whilst he was there.

Summary
I found this quite intriguing.  I take a “devils advocate” position and argue that we have sanitised the work environment to such a degree that in the typical Western, “SAFE” company, there is an unrealistic expectation that it will always be 100% safe.  This then leads the workers to believe that they do not need to take a responsibility, there is no need to be especially “aware of” or “looking for” danger.  There is an expectation that there will not be “holes” in the floor, there will not be live electrical cables dangling.
This means that because so much is taken for granted, then the level of personal awareness diminishes.   Contrast this with the site in China where there is an expectation that NOTHING is SAFE and that danger is everywhere, so that the worker needs to be ultra aware.
Maybe we have created workplaces where subconsciously, “familiarity does in fact breed contempt”.
I'm not advocating that we replicate the “dangerous” worksite practises described above, but maybe we should be putting more focus on employees having a greater understanding of danger and an awareness that they need to think about their workplace and take a greater degree of responsibility for their own actions.