[SystemSafety] Historical Questions
Martyn Thomas
martyn at thomas-associates.co.uk
Mon Mar 20 19:26:24 CET 2017
I asked David Snowball, Head of Regulation at HSE, and he suggested (a)
The works of Trevor Kletz (see
http://www.thechemicalengineer.com/~/media/Documents/TCE/Articles/2012/856/856cewctw.pdf)
and Lees "Loss Prevention in the Process Industries"
(http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/book/9780123971890 though the
first edition may be a better source).
Martyn
On 16/03/2017 08:35, SPRIGGS, John J wrote:
>
> The earliest reference I can find to “risk assessment” in UK
> legislation is the Aviation Security Act 1982
> <http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1982/36/contents?text=%22risk%20assessment%22#match-1>.
> For more-traditional safety it is COSHH in 1988, as noted below.
>
>
>
> Of course there may be an earlier “assessment of risk” I have missed.
>
>
>
> EUR-LEX has a proposal document from 1976 that has “reliability and
> risk assessment” as a topic for research in a nuclear power context.
>
>
>
>
>
> John
>
>
>
> *From:*systemsafety
> [mailto:systemsafety-bounces at lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de] *On
> Behalf Of *Inge, James Mr
> *Sent:* 13 March 2017 18:32
> *To:* 'Drew Rae'
> *Cc:* 'systemsafety at lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de'
> *Subject:* Re: [SystemSafety] Historical Questions
>
>
>
> Drew,
>
>
>
> I’ve a suspicion that legislation didn’t start talking about
> proactively identifying risks until relatively recently.
>
>
>
> The Robens Report (1972) might be a good starting point, as it
> includes a fairly thorough survey of contemporary safety law. It
> recognises that it is insufficient to have lots of legislation
> imposing design rules to counter specific hazards, and talks quite a
> bit about risk, but I don’t think it goes quite as far as recommending
> a legal obligation to identify hazards and carry out a risk
> assessment. It seems to assume that the hazards involved in an
> undertaking are already reasonably obvious. That said, it contains
> some interesting discussion about the proliferation of new chemical
> substances, and the need to carry out research to check that they are
> not injurious in normal use (para 300); how safety legislation should
> apply to the design of equipment (para 346); and how quantitative
> assessment of accident probability would be an important area for
> future research (para 414). The report is available from Google
> Books, or there’s a PDF online at
> http://www.mineaccidents.com.au/uploads/robens-report-original.pdf
>
>
>
> Although the Robens Report led to the Health & Safety at Work etc. Act
> 1974, with its requirements to ensure the absence of risk (so far as
> is reasonably practicable), the Act didn’t explicitly require risk
> assessments or similar.
>
>
>
> It might also be worth a look at the background to the Control of
> Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations 1988
> (http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1988/1657/contents/made), which
> ask for a “suitable and sufficient assessment of the risks”
> (implementing one of Robens’ recommendations); and Council Directive
> 89/391/EEC of 12 June 1989 on the introduction of measures to
> encourage improvements in the safety and health of workers at work
> (http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/en/ALL/?uri=CELEX:31989L0391),
> which asks employers to “evaluate the risks to the safety and health
> of workers”. The latter led to the UK’s Management of Health and
> Safety at Work Regulations 1992, requiring “suitable and sufficient”
> risk assessments for workplace safety in general.
>
>
>
> I’d be interested to hear of earlier examples of requirements for risk
> assessment or hazard identification. I know that the International
> System Safety Society traces its roots to 1962. Maybe there are some
> earlier US sources?
>
>
>
> Regards,
>
>
>
> James Inge
>
>
>
> *From:*systemsafety
> [mailto:systemsafety-bounces at lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de] *On
> Behalf Of *Drew Rae
> *Sent:* 09 March 2017 05:47
> *To:* Peter Bernard Ladkin
> *Cc:* systemsafety at lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de
> <mailto:systemsafety at lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de>
> *Subject:* Re: [SystemSafety] Historical Questions
>
>
>
> *Sigh*
>
> This sort of thing was happening throughout the 19th century. There
> would be a major accident, followed by some sort of public morality
> movement. In the UK, the movements were often led by local religious
> leaders, who would write articles to newspapers, publish their sermons
> as pamphlets etc. Originally these were non-state committees or
> societies of learned men, but they led to the formation of
> inspectorates with powers to inspect, approve, and then later to
> investigate. It happened industry by industry, in a number of
> countries. Steamboats in the US was just one example - there were
> separate bodies for threshing machines, gunpowder (later explosives)
> factories, railways, locomotives (the type that drove on roads) etc.
>
>
>
> But that’s not the question I was asking.
>
>
>
> None of the licensing or investigation talked about risk assessment -
> they were all focussed on specific mechanisms for dealing with
> specific hazards. The only people talking about risk back then were
> insurance companies, and they weren’t strongly involved in accident
> prevention.
>
>
>
> Today, both legislation and accident reports routinely talk about risk
> assessment as a practice for managing safety. That didn’t happen prior
> to the 19th century. I’m not certain for sure it happened prior to the
> 1950s. The formation of the inspectorates puts an early bound, the
> invention of quantitative risk assessment (as a safety practice, not
> an insurance calculation) puts a later bound. What I want to know is
> when it started happening.
>
>
>
> Drew
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On 9 Mar. 2017, at 3:27 pm, Peter Bernard Ladkin
> <ladkin at causalis.com <mailto:ladkin at causalis.com>> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> On 2017-03-09 06:16 , Peter Bernard Ladkin wrote:
>
>
> On 2017-03-09 05:59 , DREW Rae wrote:
>
> Formal investigation for the purpose of safety, and formal
> regulation of safety through
> Inspectorates is a 19th century invention.
>
>
> Maybe, but what's your trigger? What constitutes "formal"? What
> constitutes "regulation"? You seem
> to suggest: state involvement. So, at some point a state decides
> "we are going to adjudicate
> accident-events formally".
>
>
> According to this article, written by a historian at Colorado
> State Uni, it was 1838 in the US:
> https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2013-01-31/the-horrific-accident-that-created-the-regulatory-state
> <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.bloomberg.com_view_articles_2013-2D01-2D31_the-2Dhorrific-2Daccident-2Dthat-2Dcreated-2Dthe-2Dregulatory-2Dstate&d=CwMFaQ&c=axaOw2qHyp7zEDNbTjpgYA&r=I50DT5uzjgwtY3e5ckW0gBFWjiiaKOeiz7-OBXSM1Qs&m=Jeh29OMYJLYxc8QmFzC-EqMvXQodRONfQi98HFO-BWI&s=n4gV_SqDxIHfRU0wQgKN3A_9W1xn7A9QnDViSWH_cew&e=>
>
>
> PBL
>
> Prof. i.R. Peter Bernard Ladkin, Bielefeld, Germany
> MoreInCommon
> Je suis Charlie
> Tel+msg +49 (0)521 880 7319 www.rvs-bi.de <http://www.rvs-bi.de>
>
>
>
>
>
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