Jeffery H. Warren, Ph.D., P.E., CSP
The National Safety Council's Institute for Safety through Design is an organization whose mission is to reduce injury or illness to persons and damage to property and the environment through implementation of risk reduction methods by design. This is a method that is different from behavior based modification and/or education of workers and one that the author believes is a critical component for effective injury prevention.
Safety Engineers believe in a hierarchy of safety factors that are important to injury reduction methods. If you start out with elimination of the hazard if possible, and then safeguarding second, with warnings and procedures following that, you will find that this is analogous to a pyramid with a large base which is very stable and has maximum effectiveness. On the other hand, if you turn the pyramid upside down, and try to put procedures first with warnings second, and safeguarding and hazard elimination last, you will find that this is analogous to turning a pyramid upside down and trying to stand it on its tip. Safety practitioners will feel like the devil's trying to push the pyramid all the time and even superman cannot hold it up. Numerous methods of hazard elimination or substitution are available. You can also install warnings which are effective in injury reduction. However, the warning that should be on poorly safeguarded machines is "Now remember and don't forget, don't make any mistakes, none, not even one, ever!"
Susan Baker, Professor of Health Policy and Management and the Director of the John Hopkins Injury Prevention Center says, "The tendency to attribute injuries to "human error" has nourished false hopes that they can be prevented through education. Neither public education campaigns nor driver education programs have yet been shown by scientific evaluation to justify the veneration and large budgets accorded them."
She goes on to say, "All too often, however, victim blaming has characterized responses to the problem, and emphasis on training and education have been taking precedence over more effective ergonomic and passive (safety through design) approaches that do not place the burden of prevention on the workers. There is not today and there never will be a training program that teaches people to never forget and never to make a mistake."
There was a study performed in Michigan in the late 1980's about softball sliding injuries. The United States Consumer Product Safety Commission had estimated that 361,500 baseball related injuries were treated in emergency rooms in the United States. The studies had shown that the base sliding was responsible for 35-71 percent of the injuries which occurred during play and resulted in abrasions, sprains, ligament strains and fractures. It was determined that break away bases with a rubber mat flush with the infield surface and anchored by rubber grommets to metal posts would take one fifth the force to dislodge compared to a stationary base. A study was performed where 633 games were played on two fields with breakaway bases and 627 games were played on 6 fields with stationary bases. Players were college students, laborers, executives, physicians and others and the teams were randomly assigned to the fields. As a result of investigating injuries that occurred on these plants, it was found that with the stationary bases there were 45 sliding injuries, 43 of which involved the lead foot or head and 24 of which involved the ankle. The total number of injuries for the breakaway bases there were only 2 injuries with 1 fracture and 1 ankle sprain. The total medical cost was only $700.00.
The question for parents would then be, how would you like it if your son or daughter were playing for a school where the principal and coaches knew about this study and the effect of break away bases, but did not have anything but stationary bases installed. The behavior based safety solution is to tell your daughter or your son, "now run as hard as you can from first to second and when you get close to second, you slow down and be careful." This sounds like a crazy solution, but in effect, it's the way a lot of industries are running their businesses. They tell their employees to work as hard as you can all day long, produce as much as you can all day long, but when you get close to a hazard that is unguarded or unsafe, be careful and don't get hurt. With uncontrolled hazards, over time, unintentional injuries will occur. Safety through design considers these hazards and either eliminates them or reduces the risk associated with them by proper machine safeguarding. Safety through design identifies the task that must be performed and the expected foreseeable behavior of the employees. It treats the cause, not the symptom. Most of the time, symptoms on the plant floor are being treated and not the causes. Just as you'll never correct cancer by putting a band-air over a sore, you won't make uncontrolled hazards in the work place safe by telling workers to slow down and be careful. Safety by design is the surgery.