I was in a meeting for a large company that worked on pipeline maintenance, and in this meeting the head of the safety committee for all of Alberta was discussing how he thought all accidents were 100 percent preventable.
While I applaud the attempt to make a completely safe job site, I don't it's possible and I think you are being naive if you believe it is possible.
Accidents happen, this is a fact of life, they happen because there is not one person on this planet that is perfect, we all make mistakes. I think we could lower the frequency of them happening but there is no way to eliminate them completely.
You need an accident to happen in the first place in order to counter it from happening again, this is how we learn and adapt.
The head of the safety committee asked everyone in the room if they agreed with him and one by one they all shook their head in agreement afraid to challenge the man in power, until he asked me. I told him exactly what I have stated above and I asked this question: How do you plan to prevent an accident that hasn't happened yet?
He looked at me with blank eyes and everyone in the room turned towards him, awaiting his professional opinion, he didn't have one. I think he was upset with my answer because he glared at me for a second then noticed everyone staring at him, he pulled out a notebook and a pen and started writing something down. I imagine it was something to the effect of this worker needs to be fired.
There is no completely safe, even if you lived in a bubble, you could choke on your own saliva and die. Having procedure and paperwork, an outline of your job scope, how the work is going to be completed, using common sense and wearing the proper safety gear is the safest way to work. When it goes beyond that and crosses into overdone safety it actually becomes a hazard.
If you had one fire extinguisher on your truck and your company decided that every truck needed five of them instead, this would be the opposite of safe, you would be in essence driving around with five potential bombs in your vehicle. Compressed tanks, moving vehicle? If you were ever in an accident it could be very hazardous to you and anyone else involved.
There is such a thing as too safe.
Scott Goerz
