Personal Safety on a Day to Day Basis
First up, looking at safety on a personal level, what does it mean to YOU!
For me it is essentially “common sense”. We all wake up in the morning, and apart from the little sadistic bugger down the road, we all want to get through the day without hurting our self or anyone else. So why then do we take unnecessary risks and potentially put our lives in jeopardy through-out the day? We have all heard the saying which starts “if only …”, therefore we can assume that the person who is saying “if only” already knows what they SHOULD have done so why didn’t they?
There are many reasons but the most common are “time” or “pressure”. We know we shouldn’t take the short-cut but what the hell, to do it the right way will take longer to set-up than doing the actual job and the boss (at work or home) wants it done now. Or, I have always done it this way, why change now. We are all guilty of these types of decisions, myself included, but why do we continue to make these calls when we know it just doesn’t make sense.
We are all excellent with hindsight and when we are lying in the hospital bed recovering from an incident which WE CAUSED because of taking a short-cut, we can only imagine how we would have done it differently. But look at the greater impact – what are our family and loved ones going through while we lay injured and not able to continue to support them or care for them.
So this brings me back to “common sense”. We all have it so why not use it. Just take a few seconds to think what MIGHT happen if we did an action/task in a particular way. What COULD be the outcome, can we get hurt or could we hurt someone else? If we all took the time to think before we acted, then we would all be better off and the waiting time at the emergency rooms would be greatly reduced because there would be fewer incidents.
Remember ALL INCIDENTS can be prevented if we all take the time to think before we act.