A sad and salutary tale

[Limey Lurker]

There is no such thing as an 'accident'. Injury or damage is caused by the failure to recognise/identify or flaunting of the risks.

So if I'm driving along on a Motorway, at less than the local speed limit and, for some reason, a vehicle on the opposing carriageway comes over the central barrier and crashes into my car, I've not been involved in an accident?

 

[Agent_zed]

There is no such thing as an 'accident'. Injury or damage is caused by the failure to recognise/identify or flaunting of the risks.

As stated by one of the above. Our heath and safety states that there is no such thing as an accident. An incident it either the result of an unsafe condition or an unsafe action.

Whilst I agree mostly with the sentiment I don't fully agree with the statement. For example a piece of wood could have a weakness within it that is not possible to see or identify without cutting into it. You might mitigate the damage with safety equipment but the 'accident' may still occur. What if someone is working at a machine and someone is walking along and just trips over their own feet and bumps into the person at the machine causing something to happen? There is nothing inherently unsafe in this scenario it was just something that happened by chance e.g an accident.

Seems more like the health and safety doc is saying if you have an accident at our place of work it is automatically your fault for not doing something properly.

 

[TobyT]

So if I'm driving along on a Motorway, at less than the local speed limit and, for some reason, a vehicle on the opposing carriageway comes over the central barrier and crashes into my car, I've not been involved in an accident?

Nope, that is why they are called Road Traffic Incidents these days.

You have changed the scenario a little here, in that there are now multiple humans and deadly machines involved. You may not be the one failing to recognise/flaunt appropriate risks but someone was. In this case the vehicle on the other carriageway was probably one or more of the following a) travelling too fast (it should take a lot to break a modern barrier), b) mechanically unsound, c) the driver was unfit to drive. There will alway be edge cases where it is determined that the likelyhood of risk was so low that the individual wouldn't normally consider them, or was able to take appropriate mitigations; for instance a falling meteor may have knocked them off course; but the default position is to say at least one person made a mistake. Investigations and conclusions later by HSE/Police/Coroner may determine that the risk was unlikely to be seen and mitigated by a cautious person and so it is an unforseeble accident.

You mention 'less than local speed limit' which is a good discussion point to think about risk and mitigations (and is no way a knock at you as I don't know your driving). In most cases the local speed limits are set at the national level (30/60/90). In some cases the controlling road authority has made some adjustment due to an increased perceived risk (e.g. 50 on a motorway with tighter than normal bends); but generally the driver is expected to drive at the appropriate speed for the road conditions and likelihood of risk. This is generally taken as the vehicle being in good working order and being able to stop in the clear distance that can be seen.
When we start to factor in other road users and possible risks should we be travelling slower?

• There is a pedestrian on a narrow road, probably yes.
• There is a falling rock signs and it's been raining recently; again maybe yes.
• The HGV on the other carriageway has a strap loose; maybe not.
• There's a cyclist on the other carriageway; probably not.
• There was meteor shower predicted for the day; I'm not going to slow.

There are static risks we assess and review occasionally (roads are more dangerous than house floors), but we should be doing a dynamic risk assessment every time we do something that may change what we do. Often this is sub-concious (floors are safe if there are no toys scattered on it, proceed as normal), but when the static risk assessment is higher we should be performing this dynamic risk assessement more consciously (continuously reviewing road risks and regularly adjusting speed, rather than sticking at 60 on single carriageway because it isn't raining).

Sorry, started as reply to Limey Lurker, but I went off on a tangent.

 

[TobyT]

Whilst I agree mostly with the sentiment I don't fully agree with the statement. For example a piece of wood could have a weakness within it that is not possible to see or identify without cutting into it. You might mitigate the damage with safety equipment but the 'accident' may still occur. What if someone is working at a machine and someone is walking along and just trips over their own feet and bumps into the person at the machine causing something to happen? There is nothing inherently unsafe in this scenario it was just something that happened by chance e.g an accident.

Seems more like the health and safety doc is saying if you have an accident at our place of work it is automatically your fault for not doing something properly.

Perform a static risk assessment first. What's the normal chances of people tripping over, and are there any compounding factors? If there are put in appropriate mitigations to reduce the risk. For tripping.

• Cables on the floor? Move them.
• People wearing slippers? Have signs and enforce that only appropriate work foot wear should be work.
• Not much room between machines and the door? No-one can enter when machines are on.
• Some people are more prone to tripping. If you are likely to have someone with medical movement issues in the workarea then put in place other mitigations such as turning off machines when they need to move.
• Clumsy numnut? Just ban them.

Hidden weaknesses in wood are obviously hard to see. But I think we all assess the likelyhood of them occuring and put in place mitigations in case it does go wrong. Face shields, proper clothing, not standing in the line of fire. If there is still a reasonable likelyhood of something happening and we can't mitigate against it, then does it need to be done, or is there a better way of doing it? Incidents without major injury occur all the time, and they aren't necessarily someones fault. Serious incidents resulting in injury or death are usually the result of a failure in mitigation.

This discussion has made me think a bit about my own risk assessments. I have only one machine in my garage, a bandsaw. Like many garage areas, the 'space' is limited and I move around bikes, ladders, half bags of post-mix and other junk. This creates a tripping risk for others entering, and so I generally won't have anyone else in there when the machine is on. But working alone increases the risk of poor outcomes in the event of something happening. I need to think of some mitigations for this. Probably keep the door open, but have an Out of Bounds area for machine use and have that discussion with the family in advance.

 

[Henniep]

Whilst I agree mostly with the sentiment I don't fully agree with the statement. For example a piece of wood could have a weakness within it that is not possible to see or identify without cutting into it. You might mitigate the damage with safety equipment but the 'accident' may still occur. What if someone is working at a machine and someone is walking along and just trips over their own feet and bumps into the person at the machine causing something to happen? There is nothing inherently unsafe in this scenario it was just something that happened by chance e.g an accident.

Seems more like the health and safety doc is saying if you have an accident at our place of work it is automatically your fault for not doing something properly.

In your scenario the lesson is to steer well clear of somebody working on or near moving machinery.

 

[Paul Hannaby]

I do wonder about lathe speeds. Slower must be safer.
What's a recommended face shield? I'm planning to do more turning and maybe should look closer at safety.

The European EN166 standard has three levels of impact rating. These are low (F), medium (B) and high (A). A rating of medium or high is suitable for woodturning.

Quoting face shields by brand is fraught with problems. For example, the Honeywell bionic visors can be supplied with acetate low or polycarbonate medium impact visors and the same applies to many other visors and respirators so make sure the one you use is adequate for your intended use. See here for an example Honeywell 1011623 Bionic Face Shield with Uncoated| at Zoro

Another thing to remember is that visors have a shelf life. The Honeywell bionic is 2 years. How many people replace theirs when they should?