[SystemSafety] NYTimes: The Next Accident Awaits

Fri Jan 31 11:47:39 CET 2014

Interesting,

As I remember according to a study by the UK HSE both the Netherlands and
Denmark do better than the UK in various safety outcomes.

So perhaps we should actually be asking the Dutch and the Danes what
they're doing right?

In general I'm cautious about saying well it's this technique or that
process that makes the difference. What we observe is that different states
have different approaches and different accident rates. But causation is
way more difficult to prove.

Cheers,

Matthew Squair

MIEAust, CPEng
Mob: +61 488770656
Email; Mattsquair at gmail.com
Web: http://criticaluncertainties.com

On 31 Jan 2014, at 8:08 pm, "RICQUE Bertrand (SAGEM DEFENSE SECURITE)" <
bertrand.ricque at sagem.com> wrote:

Hi Nancy,

Concerning France you are right, and in that case I think that the cultural
aspect dominates. There is no safety culture in the population as in UK, as
acknowledged after AZF accident. The risk stops at the fence of the plant
and you can safely build your house on the other side ... The regulations
have changed since but not the cultures. The safety engineers concerned by
the new regulations live a nightmare as the choices are more or less,
dismantle the plant versus dismantle the town ... I think that the safety
cultures have more impact on the final result than the competence of the
safety community.

Bertrand Ricque

Program Manager

Optronics and Defence Division

Sights Program

Mob : +33 6 87 47 84 64

Tel : +33 1 59 11 96 82

Bertrand.ricque at sagem.com

*From:* systemsafety-bounces at lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de [
mailto:systemsafety-bounces at lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de<systemsafety-bounces at lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de>]
*On Behalf Of *Nancy Leveson
*Sent:* Thursday, January 30, 2014 8:59 PM
*To:* systemsafety at lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de
*Subject:* Re: [SystemSafety] NYTimes: The Next Accident Awaits

It would be nice to actually introduce some data into the discussions on
this list. First, although it is very true that the U.K. has excellent
comparative occupational safety statistics, this exceptional performance
predated safety cases by at least 100 years and is as much a cultural
artifact of the U.K. as any current practices. While the rest of the world
was suffering the results of steam engine explosions in the late 1800s, for
example, Great Britain was the first to implement measures to reduce them.
(I wrote a paper on this once if anyone is interested.) Although the
British citizens on this list know more about the history of the UK HSE, I
believe they were the first country to require companies to have safety
policies, etc., after the Flixborough explosion. Safety cases, I believe,
came into being only after the more recent Piper Alpha explosion.

Trying to tie accident rates in different countries to particular ways of
regulating safety is dicey at best. First, there are significant
differences between the engineering, agricultural, industry, and service
rates of accidents in countries, often related to technical differences.
Some have high agricultural accident rates but low service accident rates.
For example, accident rates are going to be very different in a country
with high tech agricultural techniques compared to those still plowing
fields with a pair of oxen. Politics plays an even more important role. For
example, western countries often put very dangerous processes and plants in
third world countries or governments in these countries do not have laws
that require manufacturers to use even minimal safety practices in
manufacturing, for example, and they will not as long as they need the
revenue and jobs. The safety culture in these countries will not change
magically by using one type of regulatory regime.

Note also, that there are vast differences in industries. Those with the
very safest records, such as the U.S. SUBSAFE program, do not use safety
cases. (And they have managed to have an incredible safety record despite
being in the U.S. :-)). If we want to compare the effectiveness of
different regulatory regimes, then we need to provide scientific
evaluations and not just misuse statistics (which may involve factors that
have nothing to do with the actual regulatory regime used).

Also, as Michael Holloway noted, culture differences will make different
types of regulation more or less different in different countries and
industries.

Finally, I would like to point out to those who are making some national
comparisons and putting down the U.S. in comparison with France, for
example, that the fatal occupational accident rate in the U.S. is less than
that of France. Perhaps we can avoid mixing politics and chauvinism with
science on this list.

Nancy

On Thu, Jan 30, 2014 at 8:50 AM, Martyn Thomas <
martyn at thomas-associates.co.uk> wrote:

I'm a non-exec Director at the UK's Health and Safety Laboratory (
www.hsl.gov.uk). We carry out the basic research that underpins the UK's
regulation of occupational health and safety, ranging from reducing
accidents on construction sites and improving the tethering of loads on
lorries, through to reproducing and analysing major explosions (such as
Buncefield - http://www.buncefieldinvestigation.gov.uk/) and
destruction-testing the physical integrity of tankers and rolling-stock.

We also undertake commercial work that uses our unusual experimental and
analysis capabilities and very strong science base.

The UK is unusual in having a goal-based, safety-case regulatory regime and
a regulator (HSE) with its own expert research establishment (HSL). We are
getting an increasing number of approaches from Governments in the Far and
Middle East who see the UK's good performance in occupational Health and
Safety and who want to investigate setting up similar goal-based
regulation.

Maybe there is something in the HSE/HSL approach that the US chemical
industry could benefit from.

Regards

Martyn
Martyn Thomas CBE FREng

On 29/01/2014 22:05, Peter Bernard Ladkin wrote:

A worthy opinion piece from the Chair of the US Chemical Safety Board.
Note his suggestion that identifying hazards and mitigation is just
well-established best practice. I can say from experience that it is
not yet in Europe in all industries with safety aspects, even though
he holds Europe up as having a factor of three fewer chemical
accidents as the US.

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Prof. Nancy Leveson
Aeronautics and Astronautics and Engineering Systems
MIT, Room 33-334
77 Massachusetts Ave.
Cambridge, MA 02142

Telephone: 617-258-0505
Email: leveson at mit.edu
URL: http://sunnyday.mit.edu

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