Leniency to violators by authorities

Every day, we see reports of many accidents, incidents, violations by factories. There will be hue and cry for lenient attitude / laxity on the part of the regulating authorities. There will be injuries/fatalities/release of fumes, gases from plant to public domain/dumping of chemicals in the night in public areas/failure of containment from tankers, etc. Immediately, regulators are found fault for not keeping eye on violators. Regulators also visit the affected areas, factories and say that there is no licence for operation or matter is under investigation or notices are slapped, etc. The issue will be left. Media also will leave it as the importance is lost after the item is aired in all channels.
This is not happening in our country alone. When we see reports appearing in several websites of different countries, we come to know that this is worldwide phenomenon. Even, in countries where regulators are tough nuts, stiff penalties are imposed, still accidents/incidents/violations continue to occur and reasons seem to be silly. Though, many do not agree now-a-days that 'safety is nothing but common sense', still that common sense alone can prevent many accidents.
We are all greed and want to save few bucks by following short cuts. Finally, after sometime, everybody would have experienced a huge loss because of one accident and the loss far exceeds all savings accrued so far from short cut methods. Still, the lessons are confined to the affected individual alone and again the same individual will bypass safety after sometime, because our memory is short.
In such a situation, what a regulator can do is the big question, when we do not have self discipline. Then, we have to face the consequences and suffer.