My blog this month was all sorted, in my ‘ready to send’ folder when I stumbled across something in my paper that made me stop and think.
It seems that the Government intend to raise the speed limit on motorways to 80mph in 2013. Their rationale is what you’d expect: the current limit has been untouched for years and vehicle safety has improved dramatically in that time and driving on motorways is ‘safer’ than on other roads.
But in an interview with The Times, Philip Hammond (the Transport Secretary) said that he believes we operate in a ‘democracy of policing by consent’. He reckons that if 50% of the population are breaking the law then it’s the law that needs looking at and not necessarily the law-breakers. He’s probably got a point because few people stick to 70 or below on a motorway in my experience.
Predictably road safety campaigns are up in arms about it, but there again they won’t be happy until we’re all pedestrians in any case. I have to say that I’m with you Phil! You’re a refreshing change! Stupid rules, or rules that are perceived to be stupid, just don’t get followed and frankly we (as a country) don’t enforce this particular law very well anyway do we? So why have it?
Phil’s argument got me thinking too. You see at the moment one of my key strategic priorities at work is to do with getting people to work safely because they want to and not because they think if they don’t they’ll get told off by the boss.
Although we’ve been making progress on this (which is just as well as part of my bonus is riding on it!), I wonder now whether we’ve been coming at it from the wrong angle. Maybe the biggest lever for change is really in understanding what safety rules and processes need to be changed.
Arguably if people choose not to the follow some rules and there hasn’t been an accident surely the rule is a waste of time. I mean, if the rule was to wear eye protection when doing X, and people don’t wear the protection when they should you’d expect there to be more incidents involving stuff getting into peoples eyes when they do it, right?
If the rule is really important, why hasn’t it been enforced harder either by the line manager or organisationally? After all, organisations don’t make up rules for the sake of it, most consider them very carefully. So if it’s that important it should be enforced.
Just like if the 70mph speed limit on a motorway is that important there should be more tickets given out but there isn’t. Why? Because the police are too busy dealing with other more serious issues like murder, scum mugging old ladies and drug dealers.
To help me get my bonus (I have a new drive to pay for) we’ve set up some focus groups with front line employees to talk about some of these things (not mugging and drug dealing, I mean safety rules!), and hopefully we’ll come up with some stuff that we can ‘police by consent’. In other words the rules we’re left with are the really important ones rather than what we might have now: really important ones and a whole heap of other non-important stuff that we get upset about when people don’t follow them! And of course, fewer rules the more chance you’ve got of people remembering them.
So my challenge to anyone reading this blog is to have a think of things from a different perspective: are you too worried about getting people to conform to a rule when what you should be wondering is, is that the right rule is in place? Only when, you’ve confirmed that it is, should you try to change people’s behaviours.
Now I’ve got my head round that, I just need to work out if Phil is Conservative or a Liberal Democrat – after all I don’t want to give credit to the wrong party do I, you only get one vote!
Ah, thank the Lord for Google, he’s a blue!
EurOSHM Richard Byrne
BSc (Hons), CMIOSH, MIIRSM, AIMEA
rjbyrne@hotmail.co.uk
Richard Byrne is group head of health, safety and technical services at ATS Euromaster and has a first-class combined honours degree in ergonomics and health and safety management, along with 10 years’ broad health, safety and environmental experience. He is a chartered member of IOSH, a member of IIRSM and an associate member of IEMA, and also holds EurOSHM status.
