Taking Safety Seriously: A Contrarian View of the Safety Practice

This article is an attempt to shoe some of the regular safety practices that Jim Loud, the author, has come to consider as being a hindrance to the progress of creating a safe environment. He also suggests that the safety practices, as currently being handled, is making this profession remain stagnant and it is his belief that it is what is directly responsible for preventing the safety profession from being what it should be. In essence, this article is an analysis of the various weaknesses which plague the safety profession and it serves the purpose of making suggestions of approaches which are more productive when taking protective measures.

Loud states that the safety profession has become so ruined and stagnant that most of its practitioners do not have a clue what their role is within it. In addition, according to Loud (55) it is a fact that most safety professionals, instead of working towards the fixing of those systems which are necessary for the development of good safety measures tend to attempt to fix the workers, and to do the latter, these safety professionals tend to use gimmicks as well as slogans. Among the most criticised aspects of the maintenance of safety by the safety professionals is their overreliance on quick fixes to the safety problems that arise and their failure to come up with lasting solutions for the said problems. This has come to create a situation where the safety infrastructure is barely able to maintain itself and in case of dire emergency, it is quite possible that they may end up failing (Loud 56).

A noteworthy point in this article is one which states that most safety professionals have come to confuse compliance with safety rules with safety and this may perhaps be the reason why there have been such appalling failures in the safety standards of many places. It is suggested that these professionals should help their employers realise that a proper approach to safety will ensure that their management priorities such as quality, cost control, and customer satisfaction, are fulfilled (Loud 57). The attempt to commercialise safety instead of actually implementing it is one of the factors about the current safety standards which should be avoided, ad instead, the real issues concerning safety should be addressed to ensure there are very limited losses of lives and property.

In conclusion, it can be said that there should be a quick response to the public recognition that there is a rapidly growing number of severe accidents which have come to be associated with the speedy development of industrialisation. The fact that there have developed many safety-first measures to prevent these accidents from becoming commonplace, these measures seem to have largely failed and that it is high time that some serious thought to find the necessary solutions. The strength of the safety measures that are to be taken by safety professionals have to be based on fact and have to be effective so that the safety problems which are currently being faced can be ended and a new era of complete public safety can be inaugurated.