SAFETY SCHEMES

Townsend, D., Ferguson, H., and Kohlbrand, H., Application of ARC Thermokinetic Data to the Design of Safety Schemes for Industrial Reactors, Process Safety Progress, 14 (1), pp. 71-76, 1995. 

Act (1974) provides the main framework for health and safety, it is the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health (COSHH) regulations of 1994 and 1996 that impose strict legal requirements for risk assessment wherever chemicals are used. Within this context, the use of the terms hazard and risk are very important. A hazardous substance is one that has the ability to cause harm, whereas risk is about the likelihood that the substance may cause harm. Risk is often associated with the quantity of material being used. For example, a large volume of a flammable substance obviously poses a greater risk than a very small quantity. Your laboratory will operate its own safety scheme, so ensure that you are aware of what it is and follow it. 

Generate a climate in which all staff will feel personally responsible for the safety of all laboratory operations and free to report at any time any departure from good practice and possible improvements in the safety scheme ... 

TRL manages a database of safety schemes on behalf of CSS this is known as MOLASSES. Local authorities supply... 

UK-MoRSE is an online database set up in 2007 to provide data about road safety schemes. However, the data are not available to all Road Safety Auditors so at present is of limited use. 

TMS Consultancy monitoring of local authority safety schemes... 

There are a number of reasons why a reduction in accidents might occur at a location, following the introduction of a road safety scheme. 

This is clearly a complex area, and it is perhaps not surprising that very little routine analysis to take account of regression to the mean has been carried out by UK local authorities when monitoring the results of their safety schemes. One method suggested involves the use of matched pair controls, where for each treated location, an identical non-treated location is selected and monitored. There are two problems with this approach. First, it is almost impossible to find a matched pair, in terms of identical layout, traffic flows, traffic mix, accident pattern and frequency. Second, even if it were possible to do this, there could be serious legal implications of leaving locations with identified accident problems untreated. 

Road Safety Audits are being carried out on schemes designed by road safety engineers such as traffic calming, safer routes to school and local safety schemes. 

Road Safety Audit of existing roads is not carried out in the UK. Instead, route safety studies are routinely carried out based on an analysis of historical injury accident records, and the definition of problems arising from those records. Local Safety Schemes have produced significant casualty reductions and excellent cost-benefit returns at single sites and along routes in the UK for the past 35 years. 

Attitudes to safety also follow this pattern. Consider, for example, the reactions of an employee, or group of employees, to the introduction of a new safety scheme. It is often not too difficult to infer their attitudes about the scheme from their cognitive, affective and conative reactions to it, that is, what they say, feel and do. 

Although the definition and structure of attitudes is interesting, the main reason that attitudes are considered important is that they are thought to be a strong, if not the strongest, influence in determining how people behave. Someone with a positive attitude towards safety will, it is assumed, be more likely to behave safely, and more likely to become actively involved in new safety schemes. This, however, is an assumption that has, over the years, been called into question. 

Putting all these elements together, a composite model is suggested as shown in Figure 2.4. The lines indicate what effects the elements have on other parts of the model. We will return to this model later, when we consider the effects of introducing a behaviourally based safety scheme. 

Choi, T. N. Y., Chan, D. W. M., Chan, A. P. C. (2011). Perceived benefits of applying pay for safety scheme (PFSS) in constmction—A factor analysis approach. Safety Science, 49, 813-823. 

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