Safety: "We do this already for thirty years like this"
When safety professionals do make critical remarks or question a situation or activity which they consider unsafe, they often do get the following response: "We do this already for thirty years like this".
Apparently something is safe if you have done it long enough without having accidents.
Safety is not equal to not having accidents. Accidents are actually a weak indicator for safety. But not having accidents over a long period could indicate many things, one of which, indeed, working safely. Or you just have had plain luck over a long time, or, that other circumstances reduced high risk elements.
The -thirty years argument- always makes me think of the 'turkey fallacy'. Let's consider a turkey living with his other fellow turkeys in a big cage. They have plenty of space and are being fed on a daily basis. The turkey is getting bigger and bigger and feels great. The next door cage is holding chickens. The turkey observes the farmer who regularly enters the chicken cage collecting eggs and chickens that never come back. But that does not happen to the turkey. After all turkeys are different than chickens. Nothing can happen to him and statistics are there to prove it. The friendly farmer comes in every day bringing fresh food for him and his fellow turkey friends and he never took one away. And so it goes. hundred, two hundred, three hundred days. And then, one day end of October the farmer appears. Instead of bringing food, the farmer takes him away, slaughters the turkey and prepares him for Thanksgiving.
Good historical statistical records probably do not mean anything. If you have done something for a long period without failures, it could well be that your 'Thanksgiving Day' is arriving!
Hopefully you are just in time to reconsider your thirty year old habits!
Thanks to Carsten Busch: Safety mythe #47
guiding the business towards resilience and immunity. Understanding the interruption of business! What are the risks?
6 年HELLO and one read the BLACK SWAN AFFECT? maybe there should be a book club started amongst pockets or groups? of CEOs and CFO.? The only books allowed to be read are books on sports leadership or philosophical or physics . This stuff is not new. It is so frustrating? ? ?
HM Principal Specialist Inspector | Chemicals, Explosives and Microbiological Hazards Division
6 年If your activity could conceivably result in a fatality, then the best you can say *based on that information alone* is that the activity entails a 0.03/yr risk of death (without getting into uncertainty levels, anyway). How does that compare with your regulator’s expectations for workplace risk?
Managing Director at Ergo Ike Ltd (home of Phil-e-Slide range of products)
6 年Rob, I like the analogy. Throw in the "accumulative effect" for good measure, such as in musculoskeletal injuries in carers or force related tissue harm to patients inbed. Incidentally, incident rates as an indicator is accumulated data and may be only reliable and as effective as the accuracy and consistency as the inputter. ??
QHSE/Energy Leader| Auditor & Trainer | 20+ Years Driving HSE, Sustainability, and Compliance in manufacturing sector | Chemical Engineer| Cert IOSH| NEBOSH IDIP|
6 年Great article with simple example
Safety and Health Professional
6 年Accidents are not a weak indicator, they can be the strongest lagging indicator!? The accident rate is the final arbiter of how good your safety program is.? You establish the best leading indicators, do the most training, have quality employee safety teams and interactions, and document everything so that your safety program looks totally amazing... but the fact is no matter how good you think your safety program is, if you are having accidents there is room for improvement. While it is true that the absence of accidents alone does not indicate a good safety program, the presence of accidents does indicate it is not as good as you think it is. ?