Speed limits on freeway

Jato, sounds like your area like many others is severely overpopulated with deer. By some measures there are now 100x as many white tails in the eastern us than there were 100 years ago, when there was concern that the species might go extinct. No predators, less hunters, and the spread of suburbia (deer thrive in areas of mixed woods and cleared land) have caused a real problem. They destroy native forest plants, wreak havoc on the ecosystem, destroy crops and gardens, and spread Lyme disease. Generally they don't die off from starvation either, just expand their population till they're always on the verge of starvation and can't expand it any more. Not to mention. The 150 or so ppl who get killed every year hitting them. It's not uncommon to look out my window in the early evening and see 15 or so in a couple groups.

We try to avoid travelling in late afternoon/evening and early morning, drive slowly especially in areas where deer tend to congregate, and stop when we see one ahead because there are usually a couple more right behind them.

As I stated above, "Most "accidents" involve some level of carelessness or negligence in the root cause, but lack an intent to result in some injury."  It appears that we all agree on that point.  Most accidents, or crashes, occur because someone didn't use reasonable care to avoid it, whether driving too fast, failing to pay attention, not anticipating the dangers, and so on.  

Jato, I think you must hold the record for the number of deer hit with your vehicle. I've creamed a number much, much smaller and felt all of them were accidental on my part. Perhaps it is a lapse of judgement as my immediate supervisor claimed (but was over ridden by the next level) when one of my troopers hit his third deer in twelve months. My supervisor challenged my calling it unavoidable because he said the trooper was traveling ten mph over the designated speed limit without justifiable need, in his opinion. My response was that it was a justifiable speed and further if he'd been traveling twenty mph over he would have been clear of the area where the deer jumped the guard rail before it was there. Accidents are accidents, crashes are crashes, each determined on their own merits. But I wouldn't want to be your insurance carrier.

Accident:

an unfortunate incident that happens unexpectedly and unintentionally, typically resulting in damage or injury.


In aviation, road, and industrial safety the modern approach is to view these events as the end result of a sequence of decisions and behaviors any one of which could have been changed and resulted in a different outcome.

So there indeed are very few true accidents, as podwerkz and podgeek rightly argue. This is not pc gibberish either, we are not powerless to prevent these events and they are not unexpected, nor are they unintentional since there are well understood behaviors that can be changed.

Just consider how many near misses there are for every OSHA reportable injury or how many close calls there are on the road for every crash. Those near misses are squandered learning opportunities, and when someone is injured or killed you can't simply shrug your shoulders and say there's nothing to be done. If you are the manager and one of your employees gets injured or you are the driver and someone in your or another vehicle gets injured you are responsible. Period. Because it is an intentional act to engage in or tolerate unsafe behaviors.

We at one point acquired a solar integrator with a great sales capability but they were abysmal installers. I had multiple crews of workers installing solar on roofs who among many other behaviors were not using proper fall protection. It's a PITA at first to work on a roof in harness if you've ever done it. There was also a lot of macho bs involved, real men don't wear fall protection. Unfortunately pretty common attitudes in the construction trades.

When you dug into it every single person on the crews had experienced at least one close call. They just didn't think about what those close calls were trying to teach them, even after a couple serious fall injuries had occurred. There was nothing at all accidental about those injuries, they were statically predictable with high confidence and caused by intentional behaviors.

It was very difficult to change those ingrained unsafe behaviors and not everyone made the journey. Some folks left on their own and some were fired. It required intense management commitment.

It's always management at fault, never the workers' fault. That's not bs either btw. You have to prove it when you say your employees' safety is more important than profit because they of course won't believe you. You can't tolerate unsafe attitudes and behaviors, even subtle ones because that is a test of your level of commitment.

In the end the crew members looked out for each other and the reportable fall injury rate dropped to zero. We began tracking near misses which is really a much better metric because if done well it gives you insight in advance into what unsafe behaviors remain or develop that are about to hurt or kill someone.

When you drive your personal rig you are your own manager so are 100% responsible for what happens.You can choose to learn from your own and others' close calls and not so safe behaviors and make changes or not, it's up to you.

stephenH for one has clearly learned from his experiences, he no longer runs a marginal tow vehicle and has the most complete anti sway setup of anyone on this forum. Belt and suspenders and another belt, it's impressive.

This is why it gripes me when for example I see things ike runnng a mid sized rpod behind a light tow vehicle without knowing your actual weights. That is an example of an unsafe behavior, it's wishful thinking and if an "accident" were to result due to being unable to control the rig it would be entirely predictable and avoidable.

Sorry for the rant but as the former manager of construction crews where people were getting injured on my watch I had to suck it up and can't just be quiet now when I see unsafe behaviors, including from fellow forum members. That makes me a PITA sometimes but I can easily live with that compared to the alternative. I know what that feels like too and it's not a good feeling at all.

Originally posted by lostagain ...It's hardly worth the bother to worry about using another more PC term in its place.