Is there more to the meaning of SAFE than meets the eye

What is the meaning of Safe?

Or rather, the real question; what does “safe” meaning to you?

How you interpret it probably depends on several factors:

·      what you do for a living

·      your hobbies and pastimes

·      your upbringing and the location you grew up in

·      your morals… although this can be a tricky one with many people can hold two conflicting views at the same time: ‘we do not lie to our kids’/’be good or Father Christmas won’t come’…hmmm.

Most humans Cannot, Will not &/OR Do not - make rational decisions.

For example, someone who skydives might be willing to take the risk despite a 1:200 chance in getting hurt, yet they may think that driving a car is unsafe despite there only being a 1:50,000 chance of getting hurt. So ‘safe’ is an emotion, not a number, not a fact, not an actual, ‘safe’ is how we feel about a situation.

Many people want to go on a beach holiday to the Mediterranean which involves:

• Sitting in a tube with 300 other people they do not know and breathing in recycled air for three hours in order to get there,
• living in a country for two weeks where they cannot speak the language and do not understand the cleaning or hygiene standards,
• Getting back in the tube with another 300 people they do not know and breathing in the same recycled air as these people for three hours in order to get home.

Yet some of these same humans feel that it is unsafe to send their children to school in this country…. This to me feels illogical but that me

I believe more Humans will die because of COVID-19, than will die from COVID-19.

So, why have I written this article?

I am a professional health & safety consultant and when approached to carry out a risk assessment or look at a process I need to deal with:

1.    FACTS - what the logical outcome will be

2.    NUMBERS – statistics that support the potential outcome

3.    ACTUALS - events that have happened, rather than fictional information found on the internet or published in a fake news story

When something is overwhelming, emotion can override the facts. At the height of the pandemic, the number of deaths were being reported daily, sometimes hourly, but there was little focus on how many people were recovering or the availability of new medical systems being used to help patients.

Even when terribly sad events occur, there must be a process to prevent emotion from taking over.

However, ‘safe’ is an emotion not a definitive.   

I hear all the time that we must be ‘safe’ and think how safe?

1. As safe as on an offshore oil rig in a gale-force 10 wind?
2. As safe as being in Afghanistan and being shot at?
3. As safe as working in an office in Buckinghamshire next door to a Greggs?
4. As safe as a primary school teacher working in a small village in Hertfordshire?

Exactly how safe is safe?

My wife lived in London until she was 20. During that time, she never felt unsafe and, to this day, feels safe walking around London on our regular visits.

However, we currently live in a small village and she will not walk to the post box at night as she feels unsafe.

Although she knows that statistically she was more likely to get hurt in London, she feels safe there because it is where she grew up.

If you look up ‘safe’ in the dictionary it says: ‘protected from or not exposed to danger or risk; not likely to be harmed or lost’.

So, how does the definition work within our workplaces?

Who would you want to be as safe as?

An office worker, teacher, food production worker, offshore oil/gas worker, police, fire or ambulance worker, soldier, MP, shop assistant, refuse collector, power company engineer, builder, farmer, NHS worker, student?  

Do these all follow the same level and/or definition of safe?

Would an office worker or teacher go to work if the risk factors were the same as working on an oil or gas rig 20 miles offshore in the North Sea? Where you could face gale-force 10 winds, have to extract tonnes of highly explosive oil or gas or fall into water that is so cold it would kill you within two minutes.

Let’s look at a comparison:

A bandsaw is an open blade saw that you can touch and which cuts bone and deep-frozen product.

A mincer is a machine that can process tonnes of frozen product but has interlocking guards that ensures it will only operate once all the interlocks are in place.

On the bandsaw you can see and touch the blade, on the mincer the blade is all enclosed.

Which is safer?

There have been NO deaths when using a bandsaw. The worst that can happen is that you could cut the tip of your finger off.

There have been many deaths involving mincers due to humans taking shortcuts when cleaning them.

When examining risks or safety concerns there are other considerations to be made. You might lower the risk or safety aspect at that particular point in time, but it could create a worse issue further down the line.

For example, between 1930 and 1970, asbestos was used in many houses and factories as a safety measure to protect and insulate from fire. However, it is now killing many more people than it ever saved.

A current example is the enforcement of PPE when people do not understand how to use it correctly or for which tasks it is suitable for. Individuals attain a false sense of assurance, making them more likely to perform tasks outside of the PPE’s capability, thereby leaving them at greater risk. Allocating PPE where it is not needed can be just as ineffective by creating unnecessary anxiety among individuals.

Safe is just a state of mind.

So, when we are told by the media that we must be "safe" or that certain decisions have been to keep us "safe", it does not always come with any context. As safe as what?

Could society function if everyone was absolutely safe? If you consider that over 8,000 accidents in the home result in death each year, there is no such thing as absolute safety.

If you are of a certain age, you will recall the traditional rhyme recited on Guy Fawkes Night – ‘remember, remember, the 5th of November’.

When I was a child in the 70s, there were hundreds of accidents on Bonfire Night. That led to government campaigns promoting firework safety. Today, the number of accidents is a fraction of what it was back then and, with the HSE recording 111 industry-related deaths last year, 2019 you are still statistically safer at work than you are at home by a considerable distance.

What is your meaning of safe ??

https://www.hse.gov.uk/statistics/fatals.htm

Peter M Bushnell Dip NEBOSH Grad IOSH