Serious injury prevention behavioral safety

Comments on the relationship between behavioral safety, human error reduction, and serious injury prevention. 

BEHAVIORAL SAFETY, HUMAN ERROR REDUCTION, AND SERIOUS INJURY PREVENTION... 

Worker-focused behavior-based safety does not examine the sources of human error in an organization above the worker level and has limited impact on serious injury prevention. 

The following excerpts from Reason s Managing the Risks of Organizational Accidents bear directly on the history of behavioral safety, human error reduction, and the prevention of serious injuries. 

A few prominent writers would have you believe that behavior modification, training, and leadership (consisting largely of what is referred to in OSHA literature as administrative controls) are almost the entirety of the practice of safety. But, events of the recent past indicate that several of the big hitters in behavior-based safety have revised their positions and now talk and write about taking a systems approach to safety management (see Chapter 8, Improving Serious Injury and Fatality Prevention ). 

Several other lessons were also learned from these analyses. First, when we examined serious injuries and fatahties, we found them almost always in the category of behavior and conditions. That is, serious injuries and fatalities most often result from a combination of unsafe behavior and unsafe conditions. Safety professionals often talk about a chain of events leading to an injury. Some of the links in the chain are behaviors, some are conditions, and we can often prevent injuries by breaking any of the links. 

Deciding which behaviors are critical is the first step of a DO IT process. A great deal can be discovered by examining the workplace and discussing witii people how they have been performing their jobs. People already know a lot about the hazards of tireir work and the safe behaviors needed to avoid injury. They even know which safety policies are sometimes ignored to get the job done on time. They often know when a near hit had occurred because an at-risk behavior or environmental hazard had been overlooked. They also know which at-risk behaviors could lead to a serious injury (or fatality) and which safe behaviors could prevent a serious injury (or fatality). 

The book dispels the myths that currently drive societies (misguided) view of traffic safety— the bad behavior myth and the official myth that everything that can be done is being done—and how these myths limit progress in reducing death and serious injury. It presents current scientific knowledge and draws parallels with other areas of public safety and health. The book draws on examples from the media and from public policy debates to paint a clear picture of a flawed public policy approach. It presents a model for a preventive medicine approach to traffic safety policy to get beyond an ego-centric culture to a communal safety culture. 

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