New safety rules

[alwaysinjured]

Well said Jim and Andy. Let's support the committee. I believe they are walking a fine line at the moment. Yes, they need to draft some guidelines that are practical and workable. But they absolutely have to tighten the guidelines to minimise the risks of accidents and deaths. This is quite rightly their main concern.

Tightening guidelines is not the panacea it sounds.
The corporate world got a whole lot safer when a lot of mandates were summarily binned and replaced with two simple but very profound duties.

Replacing "employer" with "RO" and "employee" with "competitor" they are:
The RO do to "what is reasonably practicable to safeguard runners, officials and others affected by the race"
And the officials and competitors to "comply with safety policy laid down by the RO, and obey all reasonable instructions"

Other legislation expands facets of that duty, to risk assess, supervize and communicate, and guidelines offer alternative ideas to achieve some of those facets, but in the end it is for the RO to determine how to operate "suitable and sufficient" systems to achieve the essential duty with reference to his course, severity, length, time of day and time of year, experience of runner and so on.

Then to document those policies, and ensure they communicate / supervize. Even what "communication" of policy means, has to be with reference to the size of the field. In a low risk situation with 20 runners, shouting out the few key points may be plenty enough, but with 500 runners and many more issues something far more formal and written is needed, as is means to ensure all runners find out. And the RO should be left in control of that process. One size does not fit all.

The emphasis is on "managing safety" not eliminating risk by "hazard free sections of courses" (thankfully now removed) or not running in "dangerous weather" sadly still there in the rules, and illustrating a big misunderstanding.

The duty for an RO is "to consider shortening or cancelling the race in extreme weather for the time of year" , not a rule based mandate to do so in "Dangerous weather" which leaves him damned if he does and damned if he does not because all weather is clearly dangerous.

Legislation might expand on one part of the duty for example:
"runners should be identified with a weatherproof physical marking that is not easily lost , but is normally easily read"

It is then for the RO to decide what is reasonably practicable in any particular circumstance.
An indelible written mark on a leg may be very good in one situation, where a waterproof number however attached may not be adequate in others more demanding situations, so legislation should not prescribe.

Guidance should offer alternative ideas, but in the end it is for the RO to enact his duty of care, "by doing what is "reasonably practicable" - the RO to determine with respect to the course, severity, length, time of year, and so on.

A group of us safety trained people would like to draft how this might work out in practise. But it needs a mindset change, away from over 50 "musts" to what is the norm for safety management now, that puts the RO back in control of safety management, and puts the runner back in charge of his safety.

There are three fundamental reasons laying down law does not work - which are also the reasons that factories acts were replaced with HASWA
(i) A rule book would end up far too big to cover the range of situations with "one size fits all" rules.
(ii) Just doing "the rules" may not be enough, or even sensible in some situations and it usurps the RO responsibility to do what is sensible too. The government found it hard to prosecute negligence cases under the old factories acts, because they had effectively become the "directing mind" by telling companies how to do it, even when inappropriate in situations that are hard to foresee.
(iii) In many cases, rules which are sophisticated enough to handle big situations, become a sledgehammer to crack a nut in others. Leaving such as Noel cancelling races for a handful of people on a summers evening. The government discovered under factories acts that too many were ending up not complying because it was too much of a sledgehammer / too expensive in time and resource in relatively safe situations, then because of that non compliance were uninsured when freak accidents happened, as is inevitable.

Spot the uncanny similarity in the above.

It is all deja vu for safety people. Corporates and government passed this way forty years ago, rejected it and decided it all had to be done differently, and the corporate world is now safer for it, because the rules no longer take over from the common sense need to treat each situation on its own merits.