Safety Matters

[IainR]

WPette won that one - her 3rd win on the bounce down there. I've been looking at some of her Strava splits on the Thursday night session Iain and she's putting your old ones under a bit of pressure

To be fair, I agree with Lecky (first for a while ).
Whilst I accept you will have some local knowledge of this race Iain, it's not right to take what happens in the results generally and associate it with athletes unaccounted for.
Results are one of the ways, but not the only way.

Who's that? Is she your daughter?

I think for this race they are the only one.. its a tame fell race, basically a trail race, but you can still go wrong and there's lots of quarry pits so potentially dangerous land, but regardless there could be a health issue...

When I suggested chip timing I was scoffed as he's been 'organising races since 1984'... so what do I know? I've only raced in god knows how many countries, 3 continents, to a decent level so dont have the experience to comment on such issues..

But this is now 3 times when results have gone astray.. sometimes it's been dreadful weather, which although understandable, makes it even more dangerous..

There's no, x is going wrong, lets try y.. just we've got away with it so keep doing the same, it will only be post a fatality, serious issue that this issue will be looked at.

[Witton Park]

Who's that? Is she your daughter?

yes - she's been doing the Eryri Thursday hill sessions at Llanberis few a month or so. She's 2nd year Bangor Uni.

[alwaysinjured]

Chris is quite correct. The members of the subcommittee referred to were Dave Jones, Ross Powell and me.

The subcommittee was established at the December 2004 committee meeting as the result of a communication received through Alan Barlow the FRA UKA representative. Alan had met with UKA and the insurers to discuss the insurance and Permit situation.
The minutes of that meeting state that "Regarding risk assessment, the insurer stated that there is no requirement for HSE-style risk assessment, but that, following an incident, it may be necessary for an organiser to demonstrate that he has provided an adequate duty of care, and that a tick list covering his preparations would assist in this matter. ABa proposed that the FRA looked into recommending something along these lines with effect from January 2006."

The subcommittee duly reported in April 2005 and the report was reviewed at the committee meeting in May. As Chris states it was decided that Risk Assessment was not appropriate but it was accepted that steps should be taken to emphasise to organisers the importance of adherence to the FRA's safety policy. These steps included a statement on the Race Registration form immediately above the organiser's signature "“I have received and read the accompanying Safety Requirements, Rules for Competition and Guidelines for Race Organisers and will organise my event in accordance with the FRA recommendations.”. The Race Organiser Safety Checklist was also introduced - this was identical in content to the Safety Requirements but as a series of tickable paragraphs followed by a signed declaration.

UKA and their insurers subsequently accepted this approach.

As many are aware I strongly support the approach Andy Walmsley is proposing for the management of safety at fell races. It does not include any suggestion of Risk Assessments. As I understand matters it does include a set of rules but much shorter and less prescriptive than the current FRA document. Race organisers would document a race plan appropriate for their event with plenty of guidance being provided about what they should consider including. To me this would be a far better approach than the current FRA approach.

Margaret Chippendale

Interesting.
Two aspects of that are very important:

(i) A risk assessment is sterile and only a working document, because although it may be needed to identify control measures, the control measures say what, but do not task anyone to do that, so the useful document is a plan. A risk assessment is there to be "shot at" in the way you describe.

Reason for the post.
(ii)The understading of what the risks are is not holistic enough. People are thinking too much about rocks, and causes of injury, not nearly enough about people and what happens in hindsight of an injury.

If the prime risk is "somebody left out on the hill" the sub risks that lead to that are a lot to do with thinking it through and peoples actions, not the misfortune that befell the runner.

Some of it is about testing good practice:
(a) The principle behind the procedure was not good enough and could never work well enough
(b) The principle is used outside context or limits
(note that felljuniors grids for example are fine in one context (as a post process) but can never work fast enough as a real time system with a high flow of runners)

ie the risk is the method is just not up to it, which is why some one experienecedd has to test good practice and write and trial operating procedures to use, and define the limits of use (eg runnerflow).

BUT

From my experience and studying accidents or far more often anomalies that could have but did not lead to them.

THESE are the risks that cause problems in practice.

(a) The principle is not defined well enough or communicated well enough and leaves too much room for ambiguity - which is even more of a problem if training is not a realistic option.

(b) People misunderstood whose job was what and assumed "somebody else was supposed to be doing that" so something fell down between the parties

(c) People fallibility. People can and do and will always screw up. You need to do what a safety guy would do and say "how do you make sure that two people have to be in error, or person +technology both have to fail for cock up to become a catastrophe.

(d) Interlock. Some tasks need verifying complete before others should be started.
With a busy road crossing early in race, I would say it is not enough to task someone to do it, with or without written instruction - the race should not start till a marshall feeds back and says "done the marking, wearing the bibs, ready to go".

[ In clarification of "screw ups" for those who read it - You cannot do what Kamal did in railpro and blame a rail driver for crass error of judgement or simply for not engaging his brain: just because he was "trained" and "reminded". All of us screw up badly some times, frequently lawyers. And in that incident the rail investigation rather than Kamals article was certainly critical of merseyrail for not doing enough, to make sure multiple cockups were needed for it to become a catastrophe - that is the difference in mindset between a hindsight blaming lawyer,and a foresight safety manager].


Those are the risks that need coping - and the solution to all of them is a well thought out plan, reviewed so that every time something is misinterpreted or causes a problem it is addressed for next time.

The cross country precedent we mentioned was all to do with the lack of proper planning for the case "so if we have an emergency and the services have to come out, then what? What is the best way to communicate to them, and what do they need to know?" In that case the "risk" was the time it took for emergency services to get to the casualty past a locked gate!

So I disagree.
Formal risk assessment IS needed as a mental process to make sure you can show you did act reasonably, and think it through in advance: but the output is not a risk assessment it is a reviewable plan, that you can update in the light of experience. Take Ian R runner accounting errors, any error like that needs to result in an improvement of plan and MUST be reviewed in hindsight..

You can rip up the assessment and hide it after planning if it was ever a written document. Say what you do... (to prove you acted reasonably) not define what it is intended to achieve (which is how you get shot at), but cannot always guarantee. That is the other problem with rules - it highlights the intent, not the actions to achieve them.

The point I am making is there is more to risk assessment than rocks.

[Toreador]

And I guess that is a fitting place for me to disappear into the ether.

noisy place, the ether

[alwaysinjured]

noisy place, the ether

True.
But toreador, every time someone makes a well thought out comment, I feel I owe to them to give a reasoned response - if only to drown out the volume of facetious. It was my thread after all.

But you are right.

[IainR]

yes - she's been doing the Eryri Thursday hill sessions at Llanberis few a month or so. She's 2nd year Bangor Uni.

Good one, they tend to just be winter, used to stop once the tuesday race series kicked off but traditionally it was always a tuesday, but think they'll go offroad now..

I'll have to try and upload some decent splits for tuesdays.. I do have some on Garmin connect, the strava ones were all my last few sessions... :-)

[noel]

True.
But toreador, every time someone makes a well thought out comment, I feel I owe to them to give a reasoned response - if only to drown out the volume of facetious. It was my thread after all.

But you are right.

You hear that everyone? Stop making well thought out comments. It's that simple.

I will be sticking to facetious comments from now on.

[Swoop]

Seriously time to give up on it all, since most of the comments are facetious.

I think the vast majority agree with the first part of your comment Mike, but I don't think it will happen.

[wharfeego]

Why do people catch moles, Wharfeego?...

Because in some people's eyes they are pests of agricultural and amenity areas.
I don't like killing moles but I get paid to clear them.

Out of curiosity what camera do you carry for "whilst racing" photos Andy? Seriously classy shots - but must be something small and light..Coming to which - what sort of lens did you use for the spider and bug shots?

A li'le compact Panasonic Lumix TZ10 for on-the-hoof snapping.
The "spider and bug shots", if you mean the short vid of the Click beetle escaping a spider's web, that would be a Panasonic camcorder TM900.
Most of my fell running snaps are taken with a Canon 7D with 17-55mm lens or 70-200mm.

They don't like me 😢

I enjoy kicking them flat

[wharfeego]

? Come back AL…we're missin' you!