People do not think about safety on a normal daily basis. It is usually part of something we’ve learned as a child or in school or it could be from some tragedy. Depending on who you are, when you hear the word safety, you might think of words like “PPE“, “Regulations“, “Compliance“, “Not safe“, “Injury”. Let’s look at Merriam-Webster‘s definition of safety: the condition of being safe from undergoing or causing hurt, injury, or loss.
So how do we define being safe? It is all about risk. Risk is the probability of loss or injury. If I told you that there was a 100% chance of loss or injury when utilizing a tool, would you use it? Hopefully, not! When a process or work, has 0% risk then you know that you will be safe from any hazards. Our job as a safety professional is to bring down that risk as low as possible. One of the ways we do this is through a risk assessment.
You may not think about it, but you do a simple risk assessment before you cross the street. They taught you back in elementary school to look both ways before crossing the street, right? Now why do we this? Well.. if you don’t do that then you run the risk of getting ran over by a vehicle going 35 mph. So how does society work towards lowering this risk of getting ran over by a car?
Let’s look at a few examples:
- Teaching people to look both ways before crossing the street
- Creating crosswalks at certain locations of the street
- Creating crosswalk signs
- Having a speed limit for different types of roads
- Having sidewalks
At a certain point in history, these did not exist and due to previous incidents, some group of individuals decided to implement these changes to improve pedestrian safety.
So, as you can see, safety extends beyond the research labs, construction site, or manufacturing floor. You even use safety in your own kitchen as you probably wear PPE before handling any food in the oven.
Next time you step into any space or perform a task, think about what you do safely.
Leave a Reply