SAFETY AND RISK

Significant responsibility of an engineer is to ensure the safety of

the public – affected by the product he designs.

Based on the code of ethics engineers role is to –

1. Protect the society
2. Produce products that will not harm the society

Therefore its is significant to be responsible and follow safety

rules
 which is an integral part of any engineering design.
 SAFETY AND RISK (cont.,)
• The probability of taking safety measures differs. A
product may be safe to one person and not to the
others.
• Eg. 1. Scissors and powerful saw is safe in the hands of
adults and not with children.
2. air pollution harms a sick adult a lot when
compared to a healthy adult.
3. climate - fog – general public can work but
aircrafts find it difficult to work with it.
• Professional safety measures may be affect the
environment or the public.
 Concept of safety
• Therefore safety has different connotations.
• A product or a project is safe with respect to a person or
a group at a given time.
• If its risks were fully known and if the risk are judged to
be acceptable in the light of settled perspective.
• Thus, awareness and maintenance of the situation is
called safety.
• Safety can be incorporated during design, pretesting,
operation, field applications, analog test and learning
from the past or from others.
 SAFETY AND RISK (cont.,)
• The perception varies from person to person, based on one’s
physical condition, age, experience, expertise and wisdom.
• examples
1. a second hand electric heater when purchased by an
electrician can be handled easily but when bought and used
by others might give electric shock and damage the human.
2. Chlorinated municipal water supplied may be considered
as unsafe we may judge that the harm to the stomach is
unacceptable. But it may really safeguard against
gastroenteritis.
 RISK

• Any work which might lead to harm us and is not

considered safe, can be understood as a risk.
According to a popular definition, “A risk is the
potential that something unwanted and harmful
may occur.” According to William D
Rowe, potential for the realization of unwanted
consequences from impending events.
 CONT.,

• Risk is a broad concept covering many different types of

unwanted occurrences. When it comes to technology, it can
equally well include dangers of bodily harm, of economic loss or
of environmental degradation.

• These in turn can be caused by delayed job completion, faulty

products or systems or economically or environmentally injurious
solutions to technological problems.
 TYPES OF RISK

1. Acceptable risk
2. Voluntary risk
3. Job related risk
 ACCEPTABLE RISK
• “A risk is acceptable when those affected are generally no
longer apprehensive about it”
• Influential factors that lead to such apprehension are −
• Whether the risk is accepted voluntarily.
• The effects of knowledge on how the probabilities of harm
(or benefit) are known or perceived.
• If the risks are job-related or other pressures exist that
cause people to be aware of or to overlook risks.
• Whether the effects of a risky activity or situation are
immediately noticeable or are close at hand.
• Whether the potential victims are identifiable beforehand.
 Cont.,
• The acceptability of risk depends upon the types of risks such as voluntary and
involuntary risks, short term and long term consequences, expected probability,
reversible effects, threshold levels for risk, delayed and immediate risk, etc.

Voluntarism and Control

• In our daily life, we come across many such things where the scopes of risk
might or might not be low. The person who breaks a red signal, is prone to be a
victim of an accident, but risks. A person who lives near a dumping yard is
prone to ill-health, but neglects. A boy who rides a vehicle at a high speed
cannot rely on the perfect functioning of the brakes. But these people
take voluntary risks thinking they can control.
• In this manner, they may well display the characteristically unrealistic
confidence of most people when they believe hazards to be under their control.
Enthusiasts worry less about the risks they might face and hence neglect the
dangers behind them. The chance of getting affected is unpredictable in such
cases.
Effective information on Risk assessment

• The acceptance of risks also depends on the manner in

which information necessary for decision making is
presented. A person can be motivated to violate the safety
rules by explaining the higher probability of success,
whereas the same person can be demotivated from such
task, by explaining the probability of failure and the fatal
effects of it.
• Hence, options perceived as yielding firm gains will tend to
be preferred over those from which gains are perceived as
risky or only probable. Emphasizing firm losses will tend to
be avoided in favor of those whose chances of success are
perceived as probable. In short, people tend to be more
willing to take risks in order to avoid perceived firm losses
than they are to win only possible gains.
Job-related Risks

• In some jobs where the workers are exposed to

chemicals, radiations and poisonous gases etc., they
are not informed about the probable risks the workers
would be facing, in doing their jobs. These are such
dangers where the toxic environments cannot readily
be seen, smelled, heard or sensed otherwise.
• The workers at such places are simply bound to their
work and what they are told to do. The health
condition of a person who gets affected under such
environments cannot be neglected because that will be
the future condition of co-workers.