An essential assumption for the usefulness of basing accident prevention measures on minor incidents is the common cause hypothesis: that causal pathways of near misses are similar to those of actual accidents (such as injuries and damages). The idea of a common cause hypothesis was originally proposed by Heinrich in his seminal book "Industrial Accident Prevention" [McGraw-Hill, New York]. In this paper, it is argued that the hypothesis of similarity of causes for major and minor accidents has become confounded with the interdependence of the ratio relationship between severity and frequency. This confounded view of the hypothesis has led to invalid tests of the hypothesis and erroneous conclusions. The evidence from various studies is examined and it is concluded that the hypothesis has not been properly understood or tested. Consequently, such a proper test was carried out using data from the UK railways which were analysed using the confidential incident reporting and analysis system (CIRAS) 21 cause taxonomy. The results provide qualified support for the common cause hypothesis with only three out of the 21 types of causes having significantly different proportions for the three consequence levels investigated: 'injury & fatality', 'damage' and 'near miss'. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.