Pet Peeves of Safety

Pet Peeves of Safety

“The {you name the person or position} failed” statement always drove me nuts.  Did they really fail?  Why did they fail?  Was there an analysis or assessment to indicate where the failure was or is that an assumption? 

For some projects I found applying the tools of the HFACS, SHELL, Swiss Cheese Model, FTA, PHA and other system safety associated really unpacked where a lot of “failures” occurred. When we do not model out the event effectively we might miss the real root cause or failure.  Yes, the MORT or that make believe model TAC had created problems but there were other methods. 

 Teaching grad level human factors engineering and leading some seminars on the subject I found that we are quick to assume before a factual assessment.  Learned that early on when one unmentioned boss “invited” me into the world of aviation or flight safety and became involved in a crash where it was assumed one thing but after hearing out some people going back and finding out something tertiary involving design of an ejection seat. 

Had a commander call me on the carpet over the repeated statement that “the supervisor failed” and asked me what did the unit do right.  It was a report that went out months late and without my review.  So a lot of tap dancing occurred.  But the commander was correct, what did they do right and if there were failures, the corrective actions were insignificant to what could fix a problem if there were one. 

An example I use in my classes is when we had a rash of backing incidents with the SPs.  In a drivers remediation course we started talking about why they were there.  Backing, all 11 were there for backing.  “Driver failed to recognize a hazard” was the safety investigation.  Whoa, we do not need to go over hand placement on the steering wheel or watch crashes the Ohio State Patrol put out.  The issue was backing and at night.  What was the problem?  Did anyone do a preliminary hazard analysis when the AF decided to paint every boundary pole in the WSA chocolate brown?  From Yellow with black markings now we had poles that were brown nose brown. 

The lack of backup lights on the APCs in the dark with non-reflective brown posts were at fault.  Once we covered the poles with reflective beads the backing incidents went to zero. 

Another pet peeve – lack of significant and supportable citations.  I was reminded of this when a student responded to an exam question with a general comment versus the required citation and justification. Had a tech that liked to throw around the general duty clause.  It was easier he said to me one time.  No, specifics, drill down, unpack the standard, and provide sound justification.  You have to provide whoever you are trying to explain the issue or hazard to with specifics.

I receive a call from a company that needs some help.  They hired someone to come in and provide a written assessment of the company’s overall safety.  The individual was, I am going to assume, former Air Force safety.  The reason I believe that was when the manager was explaining to me the checklist the consultant left, it was from AFOSH 127-series.  Time for a visit and a laugh.  Holy schamoly, this was a copy of a copy of an AFOSH checklist that had been whited out, crossed out, and some items overlooked.  This “consultant” was lazy.  None of the references were cross checked with OSHA.  So there were no adequate citations and no way for this company to rectify safety issues. 

The company had already blew their budget so for a cup of coffee and a tour of the place I provided them with tools that they would have to work through.  Two states have some great draft safety programs.  They downloaded the documents, changed some wording and they had a safety program.  Uhm, had a student this term ask something similar and offered up my secret.

Another issue is that safety people do not sell themselves adequately.  Sometimes our hands are tied because of budget or some other reason but we do a poor job showing a good cost benefit analysis to the bean counters.  Not saying it always works. But at least management would have that info.

Ok, another peeve, and this might hit some colleagues hard.  I have an issue with the “certification” requirements.  Boy, do I have some stories to tell but just a couple.  The first one was a student that called me up and asked for some help.  He worked for a company that decided they needed to hire someone with a CSP, certified safety professional.  The reason was that some of their competitors had CSPs and that could be an issue if going out for a contract.  The person they hired had the letters.  The problem came when there was a safety concern and OSHA was going to make a visit.  While Management was taking a walking tour to discuss safety issues the CSP was coming up with some WA statements that were contradictory of 29CFR.  The student would state that IAW 1910 and subsequent citation give what OSHA mandated.  The manager would ask the CSP for clarification to which the answer was, “whatever he is reading from is just a guideline” and that she never saw that before.  My student bordering on a career limiting move stated with his copy of the text in hand would explain what was necessary. 

This “qualified and certified” person never handled the standard before and was clueless.  There was an assumption that because this individual passed the exam they were also knowledgeable of what safety was about.  The manager asked if the student could provide the CSP a copy of the standard.  The student also took some of my hints for program outlines and provided those as well. 

Another was when director of the OSH program I would routinely receive calls from companies asking for interns or potential employees knowledgeable in safety.  On this one particular day a guy calls me and one of the first questions was if any were CSPs.  I explained that no as they would need to graduate and take the perquisite ASP exam.  He tells me that he would never hire another CSP again.  He went on to explain that the 3 he hired and fired were clueless of boots on the ground safety and always explained how underpaid they were for having a certification. 

Like I stated, I have some stories.

I have found that people do not want to be unsafe.  They do not wake up thinking what they could do unsafe.  What I have found is that we either do not provide the tools that create that safe zone or we slip into what I call “risk creep”.  I learning this from an attendee we had in one of the seminars I was teaching of international students.  The individual was an ex-pat that was living in Australia working the oil fields in UAE.  He spoke of and drew out what he had defined as risk creep. 

We do our job safe and do it quite well. But there is that time where we push the line.  Maybe because of mission or need and we find we can do the job this way without consequence.  We keep bumping up against the line and creeping further out until that mishap or event.