What is Safety

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What is Safety?
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Are you ever curious when someone tells you to be
safe? Like when your mother used to say, be safe
Michael. We all probably hear it every day, all
through our lives, even as adults. You get in
your car you hear drive safe or be safe when
you leave the house your spouse may yell Be safe
honey. When youd ride your bike as a kid or
walk across the street, the same thing, be
careful or be safe. Then, when you get to work
you hear work safe by your supervisor, and the
management always tells you being safe is our
number one priority. When I was in the fire
service we would be subjected to oral interviews
and the interviewers would always want to hear
the word, safety, they just wanted to hear it. We
hear it all the time. The word safety always
felt like an empty term to me years ago, now it
has much more meaning. What does safety really
mean and how do you define it?
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After years of being in the construction field
and the fire service, I think Ive finally
figured it out! Unbeknownst to the many people
who have told you to be safe throughout your
life they are actually telling you to recognize
hazards, evaluate your risks, and control such
hazards! Some of you may recognize this as a JHA
(Job Hazard Analysis). Its also called JSA (Job
Safety Analysis), THA (Task Hazard Analysis) and
sometimes youll see acronyms such as RACE,
ARECC, and typically what we refer to at HAZWOPER
OSHA Training as the Three-Stage Safety Model.
Each of these famed acronyms revolves around
basically the same formula Recognize
Evaluate Control SAFETY The three-stage
safety model is not a Risk Assessment.
However, it is similar in some ways. The most
notable difference is that JHAs are micro in
nature, whereas the risk assessment is macro.
Thus, the key difference is scope. Furthermore,
JHAs are limited to an individual or group task
while risk assessments typically assess safety
hazards across the entire workplace or business.
The risk assessment provides a broader view of
all types of risks across the entire business.
However, generally speaking, a JHA performed in
the construction industry typically involves a
general task or series of tasks to accomplish an
objective for a particular time period (usually a
half-day or full-day). Meanwhile, JHAs
undertaken in the general industry usually
concentrate on individual movements in one
particular task and break each movement down to
determine the potential risk involved within
sub-tasks. Lets talk about what actually
constitutes a hazard.
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What is a Hazard?
Before discussing the aforementioned formula,
lets first understand what a hazard is.
According to OSHA, a hazard is associated with a
condition or activity that, if left uncontrolled,
can result in an injury, illness, or death.
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Hazard Recognition The most difficult aspect of
the Three-Stage Safety Model is to possess the
ability to recognize a hazard in the first place.
Whether its recognizing a car coming around the
corner while crossing a street, or looking both
ways before crossing, or working in a confined
space while being unaware of the potential
dangers inside. If you dont have a trained eye,
knowledge, or experience to recognize a hazard,
subsequently, nothing else matters. Ive found
over the years a majority of people dont
possess the ability to recognize a hazard in the
first place. Some have worked around the same
hazard(s) for many years and were just very
fortunate to have encountered no accident(s).
Recognizing a hazard is derived from years of
experience, education, and a trained eye. Once
you gain that knowledge, hazards seem to stick
out like fireworks going off in front of your
eyes, they become easy to recognize. Hazard
Evaluation Once someone can recognize a hazard,
they usually evaluate risk at their own level of
comfort. Sometimes they misjudge that risk and
dont take the necessary controls to mitigate
that risk and suffer the consequences of injury,
illness, or death, and if fortunate, a near miss
(or hit). When a hazard is found, OSHA states
that you must ask yourself what can go wrong,
what are the consequences, how could it happen,
what are contributing factors, and how likely is
it that the hazard will occur? Once the risks at
hand are determined, then its time to gauge your
control options, and this is where NIOSHs
Hierarchy of Controls plays a vital role in
workplace safety and health.
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Source NIOSH. (n.d.). Hierarchy of Controls.
Website. https//www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/hierarch
y/default.html
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Hazard Controls
The last stage in the model is Control. This is
where the Hierarchy of Controls, as weve
expressed in our HAZWOPER OSHA courses, comes
into play with the image of the upside-down
pyramid. The Hierarchy of Controls starts
with the most effective controls at the top of
the pyramid, with the least effective controls
coming in at the bottom. The top of the pyramid
(elimination, substitution, and engineering
controls) basically removes the human being from
the source of danger or hazard. Work practices or
administrative controls, together with personal
protective equipment (PPE) at the bottom of the
pyramid, insert the human being at the source of
danger but advise precautions while doing so.
These control measures have proven to be very
effective over the years.
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Is There More?
However, I personally feel the pyramid is not
complete. Ultimately, you are responsible for
your own safety. Therefore, I believe that below
the PPE level, at the bottom of the pyramid
should be an added layer termed individual
safety. This is where all the cumulative and
instinctual safety messages come into play.
Moreover, consider this point it is not only
individual safety, but when you work unsafe, you
put your co-workers and everybody around you in
an unsafe environment. Remember, your mother
was telling you to be safe, she unknowingly was
telling you to recognize hazards, evaluate risks,
and control such hazards. This is the knowledge
we should follow throughout our lives. Remember,
Mom is always right! At HAZWOPER OSHA, our
online courses consistently carry this safety
theme and the Three-Stage Safety Model
throughout. Stay safe everybody! Now you
know what it means.
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