Risk, Safety, and Accidents

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Risk, Safety, and Accidents

• Barrie Stern
• Smith Lordeus
• Cristina Rivero
• Landyn Christopher

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Chapter 5 Overview

• Introduction
• Safety and Risk
• Design for Safety
• Accidents
• Case Studies
• Conclusion

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Safety and Risk

• Barrie Stern

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1 Duty Protect the safety and well being of
the public!__________________________

• Engineering Code of Ethics
• All engineers are responsible to produce products
  that are safe for society.

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Safety

• 1.the state of being safe freedom from the
  occurrence or risk of injury, danger, or loss.
• 2. freedom from danger protection from, or not
  being exposed to, the risk of harm or injury

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RISK

• 1. chance of something going wrong the danger
  that injury, damage, or loss will occur
• 2. hazard somebody or something likely to cause
  injury, damage, or loss

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Voluntary vs. Involuntary

• People feel safer when they knowingly take on a
  risk but feel unsafe if they are forced to do the
  same risk

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Short Term vs. Long Term

• A risk that could cause a short-lived illness
  seems safer than a risk that could cause
  permanent damage

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Expected Probability

• A very low risk of a severe injury seems safer
  than a high risk of minor injury

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Reversible Effects

• Risk seems safer if the effects are reversible
  compared to if the effects are permanent

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Threshold Levels

• A risky act will seem safer at fairly high
  exposures when compared to a risk of uniform
  exposure.

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Delayed vs. Immediate

• A risk whose effect is postponed will seem safer
  than a risk whose effect is instant

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Designing for Safety

• Smith Lordeus

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How do we incorporate Safety with design?
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How do we incorporate Safety with design?
Engineers typically consider difficulty and cost
of design.
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How do we incorporate Safety with design?
Engineers typically consider difficulty and cost
of design.
Risk must be assessed and measured.
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Minimizing Risk in Safety Designs

• Include uncertainty in calculations
• - Probability functions
• - Hypothesis (educated guesswork)
• Utilizing a cautious approach
• - referred to as the Go Slow approach
• - ensure all possibilities have been
  explored thoroughly tested
• - not always possible under real world
  conditions

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Is Safety Cost Effective?
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Depends on which perspective you take
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Ford Pinto Case Study
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Risk-Benefit Analysis

• Who are taking the risks?
• Who reaps the benefits?
• What is the engineers goal?

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Accidents

• Cristina Rivero

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So why should I care?,

• you may wonder

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Three types of accidents

• Procedural
• Engineered
• Systematic

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Procedural Accidents

• caused by human error or by not following the
  rules

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Engineered Accidents

• caused by flaws in design

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Systemic Accidents

• caused by small errors accumulating to create big
  problems

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Sierra Chemical Co. High Explosives Accident
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Booster Room 1 After Explosion
Booster Room 2 After Explosion
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After a 117 page report by the U.S. Chemical
Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, there were
recommendations to

• Sierra Chemical
• The Nevada Occupational Safety and Health
  Enforcement Section
• Institute of Makes of Explosives
• U.S. Department of Defense

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Case Studies

• Landyn Christopher

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Valujet Flight 592

• Points of Information
• Valujet was a new discount airline that went into
  business because of airline deregulation in the
  1980s
• Their cost saving technique included hiring other
  companies to perform routine operations

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Mistakes

• Oxygen canisters were closed with tape instead of
  a bright yellow safety cap
• The canisters were not ventilated properly in
  their packaging
• After the canisters were packed in boxes, they
  were placed next to tires

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Mistakes

• A shipping ticket described the canisters as
  empty, even though most were full
• Several workers approved this hazardous cargo,
  including the co-pilot
• The cargo compartment should have had heat and
  smoke detectors

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Which type of accident?

• Procedural
• Engineered
• Systemic

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Cellular Phones and Driving

• Numbers Game
• 80 of crashes had the drivers attention
  diverted within three seconds of the accident
• 231 million Americans who subscribed to wireless
  communication devices this year
• 4 times more likely that a motorist gets in an
  accident while using a cell phone

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How do engineers help?

• Mounted cell phones
• Voice recognition
• Integrated car phone

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Conclusion

• Number one duty of the engineer is to protect the
  public.
• The engineers responsibility is to take all
  aspects into account and make the best decision
  possible.

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References

• (2007, February). Cell Phones and Driving.
  Retrieved March 31, 2007, from Insurance
  Information Institute Web site
  http//www.iii.org/media/hottopics/insurance/cellp
  hones/
• Dr. Dave (2007, March 13). Weblog Thinking
  back. Curiosity Cures. Retrieved March 31, 2007,
  from http//drdave.nomadlife.org/
• Fledderman, C.B. (2004). Engineering Ethics.
  Upper Saddle River, NJ Pearson Education, Inc.
• U.S. CHEMICAL SAFETY AND HAZARD INVESTIGATION
  BOARD, (January 7, 1998). Explosives
  Manufacturing Incident. Investigation Report,
  Retrieved March 30, 2007, from http//www.csb.gov/
  completed_investigations/docs/Final20Sierra.pdf

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Questions