SDSA Approach to Risk Assessment
Risk assessment is a process that all Specialist Driving Professionals have to carry out continuously before, during and after every activity. Indeed, it is an essential component of all kinds of driving. Dynamic Risk Assessment is an essential survival mechanism.
With regard to formal Risk Assessments, there is a growing imperative to maintain this documentation, both to be able to evidence that the process has been completed in the event of an inspection or incident, and more importantly as a means of communicating awareness of risks and control measures between colleagues working on a specialist facility or environment.
There has been a tendency in the past for many operators to use Generic Risk Assessments, simply cutting and pasting and adding a new title and date. SDSA discourages this practice. By all means refer to previous risk assessments as an aide memoire, but actively completing a risk assessment for any new activity is an essential step to ensuring that foreseeable risks are accounted for properly, and learning points from previous experience are integrated.
Regular updates and reviews of Risk Assessments with the working teams are essential to ensure changes and new learning points are added, and to disseminate the information effectively.
Driving Activities that are not properly managed have the possibility to be some of the most dangerous activities there are. Well over a million people die in vehicle accidents each year. We believe this is unacceptable as a professional standard. Management of the risks associated with Specialist Professional Driving Activities should aim, through applying professional standards and operating methods, to ensure that risk levels are less than those associated with driving on public roads.
At the same time, Risk Management must not become an obstacle to activities. Rather, a means of facilitating effectively managed activities.
In response to overzealous application of restrictions in the name of health and safety, the UK HSE has issued sensible guidelines underlining principles for risk management. These are useful to refer to when considering risks:
Under these principles, Risk Assessment should be considered as a tool to provide a framework for supporting innovation, learning, and recreational activities, where the benefits and risks are balanced, and practical control measures are applied to manage risks to a point where they may be considered reasonable.
With regard to formal Risk Assessments, there is a growing imperative to maintain this documentation, both to be able to evidence that the process has been completed in the event of an inspection or incident, and more importantly as a means of communicating awareness of risks and control measures between colleagues working on a specialist facility or environment.
There has been a tendency in the past for many operators to use Generic Risk Assessments, simply cutting and pasting and adding a new title and date. SDSA discourages this practice. By all means refer to previous risk assessments as an aide memoire, but actively completing a risk assessment for any new activity is an essential step to ensuring that foreseeable risks are accounted for properly, and learning points from previous experience are integrated.
Regular updates and reviews of Risk Assessments with the working teams are essential to ensure changes and new learning points are added, and to disseminate the information effectively.
Driving Activities that are not properly managed have the possibility to be some of the most dangerous activities there are. Well over a million people die in vehicle accidents each year. We believe this is unacceptable as a professional standard. Management of the risks associated with Specialist Professional Driving Activities should aim, through applying professional standards and operating methods, to ensure that risk levels are less than those associated with driving on public roads.
At the same time, Risk Management must not become an obstacle to activities. Rather, a means of facilitating effectively managed activities.
In response to overzealous application of restrictions in the name of health and safety, the UK HSE has issued sensible guidelines underlining principles for risk management. These are useful to refer to when considering risks:
- Sensible risk management is about:
- Ensuring that workers and the public are properly protected
- Providing overall benefit to society by balancing benefits and risks, with a focus on reducing real risks – both those which arise more often and those with serious consequences
- Enabling innovation and learning not stifling them
- Ensuring that those who create risks manage them responsibly and understand that failure to manage real risks responsibly is likely to lead to robust action
- Enabling individuals to understand that as well as the right to protection, they also have to exercise responsibility
- Sensible risk management is not about:
- Creating a totally risk free society
- Generating useless paperwork mountains
- Scaring people by exaggerating or publicising trivial risks
- Stopping important recreational and learning activities for individuals where the risks are managed
- Reducing protection of people from risks that cause real harm and suffering
Under these principles, Risk Assessment should be considered as a tool to provide a framework for supporting innovation, learning, and recreational activities, where the benefits and risks are balanced, and practical control measures are applied to manage risks to a point where they may be considered reasonable.
