Warnings and thinking ahead are important means for accident prevention. They often reveal hidden hazards or issues so that the user can avoid injury.
Good pre-job planning, effective job briefings, and looking out for yourself and each other are effective ways to prevent accidents and help ensure you go home safe and sound at the end of each work period.
There is no “Silver Bullet” to ensuring your safety! Warnings should be legible, intelligible, and complete. Effective on the job communications help support working safely always too. A job briefing (planning) at a minimum needs to cover the following 5 items:
- Hazards of the job.
- Precautions related to the job.
- Procedures related to the job.
- Hazardous energy control (lockout/tag-out).
- Personal protective equipment (PPE) applicable to the job.
Shakespeare was able to observe that, “Best safety lies in fear.” Research has proven him correct, demonstrating that people are more likely to both read and comply with warnings if they perceive a significant risk. The problem is that people often underestimate risk or, more commonly, simply fail to estimate it at all. We rely a lot on our observations. Yet, we sometimes fail to consider risks. For instance, when performing routine tasks, people do not usually consider the possible risks.
One recent study shows that about 74% of accident victims had believed they were running no risk! We learn that warnings and hazards are frequent, but accidents are usually few. Unfortunately that kind of thinking can lower our safety awareness. Immediate and certain consequences are more powerful in changing our approach to safety than are delayed and uncertain ones. Warnings also often have low credibility because we believe they may exist, not to promote safety, but rather from fear of legation or from some “do-gooder” mentality that is simply trying to control things. We know that this kind of thinking can be risky too!
Experienced folks also can develop a false sense of control. They consequently perceive less risk because they believe the risk is controllable. On the other hand, the things that scare us and the things that kill us differ significantly. When considering risk folks often make inaccurate assessments. Those poor assessments can lead to negative results! When we believe there is little risk, we tune out covering the right bases, and also sometimes tune out warnings. The tendency to make judgments based upon the information most readily in mind also impairs risk estimation. Most of us have little experience with significant accidents; we gain much of our risk estimation knowledge from second-hand experience. Perhaps the most important cause of warning failure is adaptation. Experience both removes risk as a consideration and makes warning less visible to us. As experienced folks we develop visual routines that are pre-programmed sequences.
We can because inattentively blind. Looking but failing to see (LBFS) errors account for about 11% of all accidents based upon a recent study. Some of us are constantly adapting by switching from controlled to automatic work modes. This can be real risky business. Our safety requires awareness and conscious thought and focused attention. Our safety can be improved by learning from failures too. That can be a very painful way to learn. It makes good sense to approach a task or job and before engaging in it look for hazards, precautions, and carefully scrutinize warnings and instructions, along with adhering to applicable rules and regulations. Now that makes good safety sense for everyone involved. Job briefings make good safety sense! They are something that we can all live with. Our safety really is no accident. Remember consistently use pre-job planning, effective job briefings, and look out for yourself and each other!
“The only thing that walks back from the tomb is character. What a man is survives him. Character can never be buried”~ J.R. Miller
