SDSA Risk Assessment for Specialist Driving Activities
There is no correct format for a risk assessment. There are many ways to carry one out, and in each case the essential elements are the thought process and the communication and actions in the light of the results. This may be very different depending on the context, so the important question to ask is whether the process has been thought through and has adequately fulfilled the Principles of Risk Management.
This notwithstanding, our preferred approach to Risk Assessment is one using a Comparative Benchmark to establish a standard and test risks against. Doing so provides a reference point to a generally accepted level of public or professional risk, against which your activity may be measured.
This is a two part process:
1) Complete a Risk Assessment for normal driving in a comparable public environment (this should be carried out in the jurisdiction where the driving activity is to take place), for example on the public road for a general driving activity. This provides you with a benchmark for a level of publicly accepted risk to which you will compare your activity.
2) Using the same rating system, then carry out a risk assessment for your driving activities or exercises.
Your target must be to introduce control measures for your activity that will reduce the level of risk associated with your activity to less than that on the public road. By doing so, you can aim to demonstrate you have mitigated the risks such that the activity you carry out is less dangerous than driving a car on the public road.
The benchmark provides a valuable reference point to demonstrate that you have established a reasonable risk level for your activity in the event of an incident, a prosecution, or an inspection by Health and Safety or other authorities, or authorising bodies.
By selecting or designing suitable operation areas and activities, it is possible to significantly reduce the greatest risks associated with driving.
For example, just by removing two way traffic from your activities, forbidding pedestrian traffic where you are driving, and ensuring there are no solid obstacles such as trees in your driving area, the possibilities for injury are already very significantly reduced compared to driving on the public road.
Even where speeds are envisaged that are considerably in excess of on road speed limits these measures can significantly reduce risk.
So, for example, the risks associated with a car traveling at 150mph on a wide open space with no other traffic or impact obstacles are far less than those associated with two cars each traveling towards each other at 60 mph on a two lane public road.
In the first instance, where there is no obstacle to hit, although loss of control could lead to extensive damage and some injury is possible, the likely outcome is far less severe than that of two cars colliding at 60mph after similar loss of control on a normal public road - an event that would be highly likely to result in multiple fatalities.
In each case, the likelihood is small of losing control, but the severity of outcome is far greater for the two slower moving cars than the single car traveling at more than twice the speed. By using a comparative risk assessment, it is possible to clearly demonstrate this for your activity.
In this way, even a very high speed activity, correctly managed, can be seen to carry a coefficient of risk that is reasonable in the context of a controlled environment.
We recommend keeping risk assessments as simple and digestible as possible. It can often help to split them into three sections to avoid unnecessary repetition.
This notwithstanding, our preferred approach to Risk Assessment is one using a Comparative Benchmark to establish a standard and test risks against. Doing so provides a reference point to a generally accepted level of public or professional risk, against which your activity may be measured.
This is a two part process:
1) Complete a Risk Assessment for normal driving in a comparable public environment (this should be carried out in the jurisdiction where the driving activity is to take place), for example on the public road for a general driving activity. This provides you with a benchmark for a level of publicly accepted risk to which you will compare your activity.
2) Using the same rating system, then carry out a risk assessment for your driving activities or exercises.
Your target must be to introduce control measures for your activity that will reduce the level of risk associated with your activity to less than that on the public road. By doing so, you can aim to demonstrate you have mitigated the risks such that the activity you carry out is less dangerous than driving a car on the public road.
The benchmark provides a valuable reference point to demonstrate that you have established a reasonable risk level for your activity in the event of an incident, a prosecution, or an inspection by Health and Safety or other authorities, or authorising bodies.
By selecting or designing suitable operation areas and activities, it is possible to significantly reduce the greatest risks associated with driving.
For example, just by removing two way traffic from your activities, forbidding pedestrian traffic where you are driving, and ensuring there are no solid obstacles such as trees in your driving area, the possibilities for injury are already very significantly reduced compared to driving on the public road.
Even where speeds are envisaged that are considerably in excess of on road speed limits these measures can significantly reduce risk.
So, for example, the risks associated with a car traveling at 150mph on a wide open space with no other traffic or impact obstacles are far less than those associated with two cars each traveling towards each other at 60 mph on a two lane public road.
In the first instance, where there is no obstacle to hit, although loss of control could lead to extensive damage and some injury is possible, the likely outcome is far less severe than that of two cars colliding at 60mph after similar loss of control on a normal public road - an event that would be highly likely to result in multiple fatalities.
In each case, the likelihood is small of losing control, but the severity of outcome is far greater for the two slower moving cars than the single car traveling at more than twice the speed. By using a comparative risk assessment, it is possible to clearly demonstrate this for your activity.
In this way, even a very high speed activity, correctly managed, can be seen to carry a coefficient of risk that is reasonable in the context of a controlled environment.
We recommend keeping risk assessments as simple and digestible as possible. It can often help to split them into three sections to avoid unnecessary repetition.
- General Control Measures that apply at all times and on all activities, for example, wearing seatbelts, correct seat set up, cars are safety checked etc. These then do not need to be repeated as control measures for each risk.
- General Risks and Control Measures that apply across all areas of the site, for example, collision with another vehicle - which might have general control measures such as no two way traffic on activities and restricted speeds on transit roads. Again, these then do not need to be repeated for specific risks.
- Specific Risks that apply on individual exercises or areas only, and which have specific additional control measures. For example, on an exercise where cars take it in turns, the next car may not start the exercise until the last car is clear of the driving area.