Has the blame culture been counter-productive in the prevention of accidents?
Some years ago, while walking through my local supermarket with my son, I spotted a large pool of spilled orange juice. Like a responsible parent, I warned my son who then promptly ran through the puddle of juice, skidded and landed in a large heap. Two women rushed to his aid as he lay screaming on the floor, and both of them immediately suggested that I sue the supermarket for negligence. In fact, I gave number one son a clip round the ear (something I would have to stretch to accomplish today) for failing to heed my warning.
Sadly, this was my first ever exposure to the blame culture that has become so prevalent in both public and business life. (Last year, I heard a British radio announcer attempting to blame a Government minister for snow).
In fact, it appears that accidents – in the truest sense of the word – no longer exist; they have long since been replaced by incidents of negligence, endangerment and employer ignorance.
I have just taken a browse through my trusty Oxford English Dictionary which defines an accident as “an event that is without apparent cause”. So if I step from my car and fall flat on my face, that is an accident. No-one is to blame: not the manufacturer of the car; not the builder of the road; not the trusty Korean who nailed my shoes together. I just had an accident.
Put that scenario on a demolition site, however, and we’re in a whole different kettle of apparently lethal fish. An operator falls from the cab of his excavator, and his employer is immediately in the firing line for having failed to train him to use steps (even though he’s probably been doing this largely unaided since the age of three). That same employer will also be considered negligent because the daily toolbox talk conducted on site failed to highlight steps for the deadly risk that they truly are. And if the operator is so minded (or encouraged), all of this will work against the employer should the operator decide to pursue a claim with a no-win, no-fee ambulance chaser.
Setting aside the apparently misplaced and unfair difference between what happens in public and what happens on site, is this blame culture not in danger of becoming counter-productive in the reduction of accidents?
If operatives are convinced that their employers have covered all the potential accident bases, is there not a danger that they will become lackadaisical in their assessment of potential risks? And if their false sense of security is reinforced by the potential promise of a financial payout, will they take their own personal safety and that of their fellow workers as safely as they would if they were held directly accountable?
I am under no illusions here. Demolition is a hazardous business and there is no question that training and risk assessments are vital tools in the safeguarding of the wider demolition workforce and those that live and work alongside them.
But let’s not lose sight of the true definition of the word accident or of the fact that sometimes – just sometimes – shit happens.
