Calculation of the probability of occurrence of an accident involving an industrial machine such as a metal bending press requires knowledge of the failure rates. Specifically, what is needed are the failure rate of the protective device and, the failure rate associated with the human action consisting in having one’s hands between the press dies while the operator is bending a part. The first data could, in principle be obtained from the manufacturer of the device. However, in reality, this data involves knowledge of the reliability of not only the protective device but also of the associated command circuitry. In reality, such data may be difficult to obtain. Also, many important statistics relating to human performance are not collected by workplaces. So, another way to obtain the data is through expert elicitation, that is consulting people knowledgeable with the problem at hand and asking them to estimate, based on their judgement, the probabilities or failure rates that are sought. This process is often used in the literature but is seldom described in detail. In this paper, expert elicitation is used and described in order to gather relevant data for the purpose of probability estimation. Thus, eight bending press operators in a large manufacturing plant, the health and safety coordinator as well as the workers’ supervisor were solicited.