Legislation, risk based safety

Risk-Based Safety Legislation for Workplace Safety and Health The end result was an approach based on risk analysis that extends all the way to the worker level. The analysis leads to decisions at any level being driven by making work safe. That leads to a safety management system, covered in more detail in Chapter 35. 

These regulations illustrate a trend that is occurring in safety legislation, which is now starting to move from a prescriptive approach with definitions of what has to be done in specific situations to a more risk-based approach where the precautions and actions taken are left to the individual user provided they meet certain risk-based criteria. A proposed European Directive concerning minimum requirements for improving the safety and health of workers potentially at risk from explosive atmospheres extends this concept to all work places where flammable atmospheres may be formed. When adopted, this will require all employers to carry out a hazard assessment to identify whether a flammable atmosphere is likely to exist and, where so, to demonstrate that appropriate technical, organisational and other measures appropriate to the nature of the operation have been taken to minimise the risk. 

Current compliance requirements for hoists are different from state to state and country to country. Compliance requirements can come from several sources including legislative, health and safety acts, regulations, standards and codes. The recent trend in these documents is to move away from the prescriptive to more risk based approach. This is where a standard like... 

In 2000 the Fire Safety Advisory Board was established to reform the fire legislation to simplify, rationalize and consolidate existing legislation. It would provide for a risk based approach to fire safety allowing more efficient, effective enforcement by the fire and rescue service and other enforcing authorities. 

Toxicogenomics enables safety for humans and the environment without animal testing (ASAT). Due to legislation and requirements for chemical and food safety that recommend no animal tests there is an urgent need for reliable, quick and low-cost test methods that are not based on animal models. Toxicogenomics is expected to enable the development of such methods within a new concept of safety and risk assessment (ASAT). 

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