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REPORTS RISK ASSESSMENT WHY BOTHER?

What is a Risk Assessment ?

This is now used widely in industry to demostrate that you have identified the risks involved in a certain activity and taken steps to remove or reduce the risk.

Why Would I Fill One In ?

This is not about ass covering. It is being proactive. A risk assessment helps you identify risks and put measures in place to reduce or eliminate the risk. These measures could be a procedure, such as speed limits, driver inductions etc, or could be actions such as modifications to track layout, fencing etc.

A risk assessment would also help to prove that you are aware of risks and have taken "so far as reasonably practacble" steps to reduce the risk. While a risk assessments are legal requirements at work it does not hurt to have them in place for your own personal use.

The ones at work are nothing like your example

Even in the work place the law does not specify the format, it simply states you need to have them in place. For simplicity of identifying the risk I have used the levels of "High Medium or Low". Idealy you want to put procedures or measures in place to reduce High and Medium risk activities to Low or ZERO Risk.

High - High occurance /chance

Med - Medium occurance/ chance -

Low - Low to zero chance. Ideally all risks identified should be in this box after control measures have been put in place.

Contol Measures

After identifying a High or Medium risk, contol measures are the means by which you use to reduce or eliminate the risk.

Example - you are designing your railway and there is a tree in close proximity this could be a high risk. By re routing or removing the tree this would become a low risk. Other control measures may include - site rules, driver inductions, fencing etc.

If you have identified a specific procedure that needs to be followed you may need to produce a Method Statement. This is where you put in to writing the procedure and issue it to the people who need to follow it. This may include track procedures or driver instructions. Most importantly Method Statements need to be issued to the people who need it and constantly monitored to make sure they follow it.

If for what ever reason they are not followed, review and make alterations or take actions to ensure they are followed.

Example

RISK ASSESSMENT example

Word Document - better formatted + easier to modify for personal use.

Please note - feel free to use my example but note that the information contained with in may not be correct for your own needs. I have included them as a guide to help you think about the risks.


Just a thought

If you suffered a serious incident on your railway and someone decided to sue.

  • What have you got in place to defend yourselves?

  • Who was to blame? - did you tell them not to speed, avoid that fence post, careful when getting off because...etc. because if you didn't then it might be a contributing factor.

  • Were they aware of the potential damage the train could do? How were they to know that would happen.

  • You have a "Duty of Care" to all, was this breached. You'll be surprised how many sue on this alone.

  • Insurance cover does not stop accidents and it might not cover negligence.

Don't support lawers - support and encourage a positive approach to safety






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