Rigpig wrote:
Robin, my reasoning was that, whilst each crash is a discrete event in its own right as you say, the 'error' links in the chain of events that lead up to it will often have been repeated many, many times over but not co-incidentally in a way that results in disaster.
Thus, if we can eradicate one of those links from that particular chain (by encouraging drivers not to engage in secondary tasks whilst driving) we can help bring accident stats down. Its the old risk triangle thing isn't it? At the top are the crashes, and below it at the base are the multitude of risky behaviours that lead to the crashes occuring. If we tackle the events at the base, no matter how trivial they appear to be, we can effect the number of events that appear at the top.
Isn't this how workplace risk management works? Safety Engineer I'm looking at you for guidance here...
Yes would agree broadly with two caveats, one the assessment is done by a competant person and also there becomes a point of diminshing returns where a trivial risk is so trivial that the control measure is seen and is OTT and then diminishes control measures for real risks (as an example when CoSHH - Control of Substances Hazardous to Health came out people were banning Tip-Ex as it had 1.1.1. Trichloroethelyne - think that's the right spelling but they hadn't bothered to factor in exposure, you would need to drink gallons of the stuff to even have it register in your blood let alone have any health effects, it took about 5 years to people to take CoSHH seroulsy after that).
Rigpig wrote:
Furthemore, we talk a lot about road safety messages in here. Isn't the best message to tell drivers not to engage in a secondary activity not related to driving their car whilst at the wheel? Its clear and unambiguous after all.
However, perhaps with the mobile phone law we risk identifying one behaviour and risk, by omission of absolute identification, drivers believing that its OK to do other things.
Ultimately I belive that this, and the speed limit enforcement debate, boils down to the needs and requirements of the individual versus those of the system. As individuals we all think our little indiscretions, phone calls, sarnie bites etc etc are done in the safest way and we should be left to get on with it. But across the system they add up to a cumulative problem where the process of self-assessment goes wrong.
However, at the end of the day we have to be realsitic as well. There are 30 million drivers in the country and some of them are inevitably going to feel the need to use the phone, eat etc etc, and its how we deal with those events that is important
And there you've hit the nail on the head, in safety circles the idea of 'dynamic risk assessment' is creeping in where rather than me turning up saying here is the risk assessment and expecting those on site to follow it even when it becomes out of date excesive for the current level of risk, I turn up and train them on a. the safety aspects of the task and b. how to carry out a risk assessment. It's part of behavioural safety and because it treats adults like adults and trains them to make informed desicions we get a higher rate of compliance than the old prescriptive levels - 'You will, Will Not do this/that'.
In comparison with driving we have poorly trained staff (drivers) with poor judgement and skills being told 'You Will/Will Not do' and as you say Rigpig where there is no prescriptive drivers default to what they want to do.
Perhaps we should as part of the wider scheme be insisting on better driver standards, rather than dumbing down?
After all when 'Grandfather rights' were scrapped for plant drivers there were plant drivers who couldn't meet the required test standard and as a result lost there jobs, however, it was taken that this was a better route than allowing poorly trained muppets on site.
Should we be looking at raising the bar for new driver training and testing, it will take a generation to see effects.
Sorry digressing again, it's been a long day.
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