Hello, I have a query on a safety term in relation to over emphasising safety on simple tasks and neglecting more critical complex activities as they are more difficult to understand e.g. there may be more procedures/ regulations in place for washing floors or lifting heavy equipment and less for controlling a nuclear plant. Does anyone know the term for this? (Apologies for the poor explanation) Thanks

I can understand what you mean - it is the safety equivalent of rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, or burying ones head in the sand. I cannot think of a term for it however (except incompetence!).

I might be barking up the wrong tree but is this what you mean- “Availability Heuristic” – a fancy scientific way of saying that people judge events as more likely if they can easily conjure up images of them occurring, regardless of the real odds see this very interesting site: http://www.statslab.cam....piegelhalter/davids.html

Or you could just say those people are being lazy, incompetant and unprofessional.

Thanks Jane, very useful indeed! Andy

Decision Aversion: The tendency to avoid decision making; the tougher the decision, the greater the likelihood of decision aversion.

Hi Duggan It's one of the common outcomes of excessive belief in the Heinrich/Bird triangle and numerical risk matrices (e.g. 5x5). Many accidents at the bottom of the triangle are not precursors of a serious accident. For example, I usually park on a narrow street where there is only just enough room to get another vehicle between two lines of parked cars. Hence park as close as possible to high kerb. Inevitably hit it occasionally. Not a precursor of e.g. whiplash. Conversely, if they're filming Taggart with a production vehicle pointing down the hill in icy conditions, and it slides down totally 9 cars (it happened) - this is very much a precursor to a fatal. Both methodologies very poor at dealing with the low probability high consequence incident. On a 5x5 matrix the risk in Japan would come out at 1 x 5 = "low" risk. Similar would apply to e.g. Texas City and Buncefield explosions.

The Esso Longford gas explosion, in Victoria, Australia in 1998 which caused the deaths of two workers at the company’s plant and disrupted the supply of gas for millions of residents in Victoria for weeks afterwards was caused in part by (Quote from the Royal Commission) “a “safety culture" was more oriented towards preventing lost time due to accidents or injuries, rather than protection of workers and their health.” So again an example of not seeing the wood for the trees. A word for this? Barking up the wrong tree? ( i know that's 4 words)