As I was watching videos in another thread (One Of Those OMG Incidents) of forklift crashes, crane fails, and other such disasters, I wondered how often this happens and how much it actually costs in terms of lost revenue, insurance, costs being passed down to consumers, etc.
I realize nobody is perfect, and even I've made mistakes on occasion - but never anything on this scale.
I've also attended work meetings where risk management was discussed, and I found a site which talks about risk assessments (focusing on the Fukushima nuclear plant disaster): Probabilistic Risk Assessment - Lessons Learned from the Fukushima Nuclear Accident for Improving Safety of U.S. Nuclear Plants - NCBI Bookshelf
I wonder where Homer Simpson fits in to this assessment. Are there some people who are just naturally unlucky and/or prone to screwing up?
I once knew a guy in my circle of friends named "Mel." He was a bit clumsy and dropped things a lot. He often knocked over cups, cans, spilling things. He didn't do it on purpose; these were accidents, but it got to the point where if anyone dropped anything or something like that, we would call it a "Mel," which became a generic term for any kind of screw up. He was a nice guy; everybody liked him, but you certainly wouldn't want him working in a nuclear power plant or driving a forklift.
It's not just industrial accidents, but there are plenty of examples of simple carelessness having disastrous and/or tragic results. I remember a malpractice lawsuit where a patient died because he was given the wrong blood type. Apparently, nobody bothered to check. I'm not a doctor, but even I can't see myself making that kind of mistake.
We see it in the justice system and law enforcement, where innocent people are sent to prison for crimes they didn't commit. Or we might hear of tragic shootings as a result of cops making mistakes. It reminds me of a line from the TV show Dragnet (where a reporter was challenging Sgt. Friday's statements that "sometimes police make mistakes): "A police officer with a gun has no business making a mistake."
I think the same principle can be applied to other professions as well.
Do we tolerate screw ups too much? Do we dismiss things too easily as "accidents will happen" or "he didn't mean to do that"? Should people who appear to be screw-ups or accident prone be in high-risk occupations, even despite whatever training or education they might have received?
If someone does something intentionally, such as malicious criminal damage, we punish them.
But if they "didn't mean to," it's different - even if they cause the same amount or greater damage. They can just say "Oops, my bad" and go on with their lives, while letting the insurance company pay the damages. With government workers, the taxpayers have to pay the damages, while the person making the screw-up seems protected from having to be personally accountable for their mistakes.
Thoughts?
I realize nobody is perfect, and even I've made mistakes on occasion - but never anything on this scale.
I've also attended work meetings where risk management was discussed, and I found a site which talks about risk assessments (focusing on the Fukushima nuclear plant disaster): Probabilistic Risk Assessment - Lessons Learned from the Fukushima Nuclear Accident for Improving Safety of U.S. Nuclear Plants - NCBI Bookshelf
Numerous definitions exist on the meaning of risk and risk assessment. A working definition of risk is the “set of triplets” definition (Kaplan and Garrick, 1981). It has been used in many applications, but particularly by the nuclear power industry and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. According to this definition, the question “What is the risk?” is really three separate questions:
1.
What can go wrong?
2.
How likely is that to happen?
3.
What are the consequences if it does happen?
Risk can be defined mathematically using the following expression:
R = {(Si, Li, Xi)}c
where
R denotes the risk attendant to the system or activity of interest;
Si denotes the ith risk scenario (a description of the ith “what can go wrong” scenario);
Li denotes the likelihood that the ith scenario will happen, with uncertainty; and
Xi denotes the consequences if the ith scenario does happen.
The outer brackets in {(Si, Li, Xi,)} imply “the set of” triplets and the subscript c indicates that the set of triplets is “complete” (i.e., all, or all of the important, triplets are included in the set). In other words, “risk” is a set of scenarios, likelihoods, and consequences. In practice, these can be assembled into a variety of forms to represent the risk of the system being evaluated.
I wonder where Homer Simpson fits in to this assessment. Are there some people who are just naturally unlucky and/or prone to screwing up?
I once knew a guy in my circle of friends named "Mel." He was a bit clumsy and dropped things a lot. He often knocked over cups, cans, spilling things. He didn't do it on purpose; these were accidents, but it got to the point where if anyone dropped anything or something like that, we would call it a "Mel," which became a generic term for any kind of screw up. He was a nice guy; everybody liked him, but you certainly wouldn't want him working in a nuclear power plant or driving a forklift.
It's not just industrial accidents, but there are plenty of examples of simple carelessness having disastrous and/or tragic results. I remember a malpractice lawsuit where a patient died because he was given the wrong blood type. Apparently, nobody bothered to check. I'm not a doctor, but even I can't see myself making that kind of mistake.
We see it in the justice system and law enforcement, where innocent people are sent to prison for crimes they didn't commit. Or we might hear of tragic shootings as a result of cops making mistakes. It reminds me of a line from the TV show Dragnet (where a reporter was challenging Sgt. Friday's statements that "sometimes police make mistakes): "A police officer with a gun has no business making a mistake."
I think the same principle can be applied to other professions as well.
Do we tolerate screw ups too much? Do we dismiss things too easily as "accidents will happen" or "he didn't mean to do that"? Should people who appear to be screw-ups or accident prone be in high-risk occupations, even despite whatever training or education they might have received?
If someone does something intentionally, such as malicious criminal damage, we punish them.
But if they "didn't mean to," it's different - even if they cause the same amount or greater damage. They can just say "Oops, my bad" and go on with their lives, while letting the insurance company pay the damages. With government workers, the taxpayers have to pay the damages, while the person making the screw-up seems protected from having to be personally accountable for their mistakes.
Thoughts?