• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Safety Risk .net

Humanising Safety and Embracing Real Risk

  • Home
    • About
      • Privacy Policy
      • Contact
  • FREE RESOURCES
    • FREE SAFETY eBOOKS
    • FREE DOWNLOADS
    • TOP 50
    • FREE RISK ASSESSMENT FORMS
    • Find a Safety Consultant
    • Free Safety Program Documents
    • Psychology Of Safety
    • Safety Ideas That Work
    • HEALTH and SAFETY MANUALS
    • FREE SAFE WORK METHOD STATEMENT RESOURCES
    • Whats New In Safety
    • FUN SAFETY STUFF
    • Health and Safety Training
    • SAFETY COURSES
    • Safety Training Needs Analysis and Matrix
    • Top 20 Safety Books
    • This Toaster Is Hot
    • Free Covid-19 Toolbox Talks
    • Download Page – Please Be Patient With Larger Files…….
    • SAFETY IMAGES, Photos, Unsafe Pictures and Funny Fails
    • How to Calculate TRIFR, LTIFR and Other Health and Safety Indicators
    • Download Safety Moments from Human Resources Secretariat
  • PSYCHOLOGY OF SAFETY & RISK
    • Safety Psychology Terminology
    • Some Basics on Social Psychology & Risk
    • Understanding The Social Psychology of Risk – Prof Karl E. Weick
    • The Psychology of Leadership in Risk
    • Conducting a Psychology and Culture Safety Walk
    • The Psychology of Conversion – 20 Tips to get Started
    • Understanding The Social Psychology of Risk And Safety
    • Psychology and safety
    • The Psychology of Safety
    • Hot Toaster
    • TALKING RISK VIDEOS
    • WHAT IS SAFETY
    • THE HOT TOASTER
    • THE ZERO HARM DEBATE
    • SEMIOTICS
    • LEADERSHIP
  • Covid-19
    • COVID-19 (Coronavirus, Omicron) Health and Safety Slogans and Quotes for the Workplace
    • Covid-19 Returning to Work Inductions, Transitioning, Safety Start Up and Re Entry Plans
    • Covid-19 Work from Home Safety Checklists and Risk Assessments
    • The Hierarchy of Control and Covid-19
    • Why Safety Loves Covid-19
    • Covid-19, Cricket and Lessons in Safety
    • The Covid-19 Lesson
    • Safety has this Covid-19 thing sorted
    • The Heart of Wisdom at Covid Time
    • How’s the Hot Desking Going Covid?
    • The Semiotics of COVID-19 and the Social Amplification of Risk
    • Working From Home Health and Safety Tips – Covid-19
    • Covid-19 and the Hierarchy of Control
  • Dr Rob Long Posts
    • Learning Styles Matter
    • There is no HIERARCHY of Controls
    • Scaffolding, Readiness and ZPD in Learning
    • What Can Safety Learn From Playschool?
    • Presentation Tips for Safety People
    • Dialogue Do’s and Don’ts
    • It’s Only a Symbol
    • Ten Cautions About Safety Checklists
    • Zero is Unethical
    • First Report on Zero Survey
    • There is No Objectivity, Deal With it!
  • Quotes & Slogans
    • Researchers Reveal the Top 10 Most Effective Safety Slogans Of All Time
    • When Slogans Don’t Work
    • 77 OF THE MOST CLASSIC, FAMOUS and INFAMOUS SAFETY QUOTES
    • 500 BEST and WORST WORKPLACE HEALTH and SAFETY SLOGANS 2021
    • 167 CATCHY and FUNNY SAFETY SLOGANS FOR THE WORKPLACE
    • COVID-19 (Coronavirus, Omicron) Health and Safety Slogans and Quotes for the Workplace
    • Safety Acronyms
    • You know Where You Can Stick Your Safety Slogans
    • Sayings, Slogans, Aphorisms and the Discourse of Simple
    • Spanish Safety Slogans – Consignas de seguridad
    • Safety Slogans List
    • Road Safety Slogans
    • How to write your own safety slogans
    • Why Are Safety Slogans Important
    • Safety Slogans Don’t Save Lives
    • 40 Free Safety Slogans For the Workplace
    • Safety Slogans for Work
You are here: Home / Risk Assessment / An Engineering Dreamworld

An Engineering Dreamworld

November 21, 2020 by Dr Rob Long 4 Comments

How strange that when something goes wrong Safety flocks to Engineering for its reasoning. Even though Engineering has been deleted from safety association titles, it remains the raison d’être for safety. We observe this in the Coronial Enquiry into the Dreamworld Tragedy. The 274-page Dreamworld Coronial is a mono-disciplinary exploration of a mechanical world. The presumption of the Coronial Enquiry is that Engineering is THE discipline that determines safety.

The Coronial Report accepts many of the assumptions of safety Engineering including the validity of risk matrixes, Administrative controls and paper-based systems. In many ways the investigation into the tragedy reads like and examination by Engineering experts of the work of other Engineers at Dreamworld. All of the assumptions of auditing, checklists and inspections are accepted without question as are the many assumptions of the Discipline of Engineering throughout the report.

The major focus of the Report is on the technicalities of the Thunder River Rapids Ride (TRRR) at Dreamworld Theme Park. The Report is about pumps, water levels, standards, conveyors, raft contact, administrative controls, safety management systems, inspections and inductions.

At point point 912 page 239 we have this:

‘It was the view of the experts that if any of the above events had been avoided, the incident would not have occurred. It is considered that a change of any one of the engineering measures identified in Question 6 would probably have prevented the disastrous outcome. Significantly, whilst the water level drop was a primary cause of this incident, there were multiple other hazards evident on the ride, as outlined previously (conveyor slat removals, nip point etc.), which could have caused other catastrophic incidents to occur at any time.’

All the advice sought from experts in the Coronial Inquiry were Engineers. Apparently a safety problem is an engineering problem. What is fascinating about the Inquiry is the assumption that one Discipline has the insight to envision risk (https://www.humandymensions.com/product/envisioning-risk-seeing-vision-and-meaning-in-risk/). No expertise outside of Engineering is sought during the Investigation. Even the attempt at Human Factors is conducted by a Cognitive Engineer. We all know anyway that Human Factors is NOT about humans but rather humans as factors within a system. Systems is the focus of this Discipline.

When you see every problem as a nail, then your only solution is a hammer. Such is the nature of mono-disciplinary investigation. At no place in the Dreamworld Investigation is a Transdisciplinary approach (https://safetyrisk.net/transdisciplinary-thinking-in-risk-and-safety/) countenanced. The assumption is that a safety is an engineering problem.

Now, don’t get me wrong, engineering has a place in the challenges of tackling risk but the privileging of this Discipline over all others is in itself the problem. None of the weaknesses of the engineering worldview are challenged. None of the assumptions of the engineering paradigm are questioned. And yet, we know that Engineers have no expertise in a host of person-focused challenges that face the safety industry including the nature of personhood, collective unconscious and culture. Why is engineering privileged in this way? Obviously, because safety is still understood as the study of objects.

At page 260 of the Report we have this:

‘Irresponsibly, and consequently tragically, the Safety Department at Dreamworld was not structured to operate effectively, with the safety systems in place at the time of the incident correctly described as ‘immature’. Document management was poor, with no formal risk register in place, members of the Department did not conduct any holistic risk assessments of rides with the general view being that the E&T Department were responsible for such matters. There were no safety audits conducted as to the human components of the ride systems at Dreamworld.’

Embedded in such statements is the continued belief in the mythologies of safety, namely that: safety systems save lives, safety is about document management, risk registers make sense, risk assessments work and that audits manage safety. The acceptance of the mythologies and symbols of safety are never challenged in this Inquiry.

The notion of culture as a critical factor in incident causation is only mentioned once in the entire Report and at the end.

‘Such a culpable culture can exist only when leadership from the Board down are careless in respect of safety (p.270)’

This single comment is preceded by dozens of pages of discussion validating and assuming the process of safety as: identifying hazards, maintaining paperwork and enforcing administrative controls. We saw similar unquestioned assumptions in the Brady Report into fatalities in Queensland Mining (https://safetyrisk.net/brady-review-nothing-new-no-way-forward/ ). When your assumption is that safety is about objects, call in an Engineer so that the culture won’t change.

In contrast this week we saw problems associated with war crimes committed by the Australian Defence Force (https://www.theage.com.au/national/rock-star-hubris-and-a-warrior-culture-what-went-wrong-in-afghanistan-20201119-p56g5w.html) where the nature of culture was bluntly declared – ‘Rock-star Hubris and Warrior Culture’. How powerful, at least someone knows where the foundations of problems are situated.

At no place in the Dreamworld Coronial is the idea of ‘hubris’ mentioned, even though one of the assumptions of managing the TRRR was that no significant even had happened on the ride for 30 years. If I wanted to understand the nature of hubris, institutionalized overconfidence, safety arrogance, perception blindness, cultural influences, social psychological factors, envisioning risk and envisioning causality, I wouldn’t seek out an Engineer.

When you make safety an engineering problem you help those in power recede into the background. When your body of knowledge is all about objects you create an industry that has no vision for the nature of subjects. When your curriculum is focused on regulation memory and recall, checklisting, counting and paperwork, you churn out automatons who can’t think critically (https://safetyrisk.net/critical-thinking-at-risk/). One could just as easily define safety as a political problem or a social problem but that would take safety out of its comfort zone and its love of objects and zero.

The big lesson from the Dreamworld Coronial is that safety is understood as an engineering activity.

Of course we know that risk and safety is about much more than Engineering Controls which is at best the 3rd step on the journey in risk maturity (see Figure 1. Leadership and Risk Maturity – see further https://vimeo.com/377161192 https://vimeo.com/143710374)

Figure 1. Leadership and Risk Maturity

clip_image002

When we equate safety to the engineering of risk we limit the journey to marking time on one step, the many other steps in Headspace and Goupspace fly under the radar. In this way those in power, cultures of decision making, the politics of power, sub-cultures of non-leadership and many other non-materialist characteristics of organizing remain untouched. The perfect way to make sure that nothing changes.

  • Bio
  • Latest Posts
  • More about Rob
Dr Rob Long

Dr Rob Long

Expert in Social Psychology, Principal & Trainer at Human Dymensions
Dr Rob Long

Latest posts by Dr Rob Long (see all)

  • Culture Silences in Safety – Linguistics - May 26, 2022
  • Culture Silences in Safety – Embodiment - May 26, 2022
  • Culture Silences in Safety – Holism - May 23, 2022
  • Culture Silences in Safety The Collective Unconscious - May 21, 2022
  • Culture Silences in Safety Artefacts - May 20, 2022
Dr Rob Long
PhD., MEd., MOH., BEd., BTh., Dip T., Dip Min., Cert IV TAA, MRMIA Rob is the founder of Human Dymensions and has extensive experience, qualifications and expertise across a range of sectors including government, education, corporate, industry and community sectors over 30 years. Rob has worked at all levels of the education and training sector including serving on various post graduate executive, post graduate supervision, post graduate course design and implementation programs.

Please share our posts

  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)

Related

Filed Under: Risk Assessment, Robert Long, Social Psychology of Risk Tagged With: Dreamworld, engineering, groupspace

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Rob Long says

    November 27, 2020 at 8:43 AM

    John, in the church of safety engineers are the grand high priests.

    Reply
  2. john worthington says

    November 27, 2020 at 7:54 AM

    Safety seems to completely miss the point that Engineering is undertaken by Engineers that are in-fact human. Bias, assumptions and even the capability of the Engineering are rarely questioned or challenged. I work for a Engineering, scientific organisation where every problem is regarded as needing an Engineering or scientific solutions, completely disregarding any human elements. If you are a hammer everything is a nail.

    Reply
  3. Bernard Corden says

    November 21, 2020 at 2:11 PM

    The coroner’s report does not explicitly state who owns the land on which Dreamworld is built or disclose any of the major investors with Ardent Leisure via Ariadne Australia.

    Reply
  4. Bernard Corden says

    November 21, 2020 at 11:52 AM

    The following is worth a read:

    https://www.ingenia.org.uk/getattachment/Ingenia/Issue-25/Autism-and-Engineers-is-there-a-connection/Acker.pdf

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Search and Discover More on this Site

Visit Count – Started Jan 2015

  • 24,030,425 Visitors

Never miss a post - Subscribe via Email

Enter your email address and join other discerning risk and safety people who receive notifications of new posts by email

Join 7,426 other subscribers

NEW! Free Download

How we pay for the high cost of running of this site – try it for free on your site

Please take our 2 minute zero survey

Recent Comments

  • Matt Thorne on SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY OF RISK – INTRODUCTION WORKSHOP
  • Matt Thorne on SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY OF RISK – INTRODUCTION WORKSHOP
  • Rob Long on Culture Silences in Safety – Embodiment
  • Rob Long on SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY OF RISK – INTRODUCTION WORKSHOP
  • Brian Darlington on SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY OF RISK – INTRODUCTION WORKSHOP
  • Wynand on Culture Silences in Safety – Embodiment
  • Lynn Getzinger on Free Online Safety Training Courses
  • Rob Long on How to Give an Unforgettable Safety Presentation
  • Ndilimeke Shiwayu on How to Give an Unforgettable Safety Presentation
  • Mark Wayne Arboso on 500 BEST and WORST WORKPLACE HEALTH and SAFETY SLOGANS 2021

FREE eBOOK DOWNLOADS

Recent Posts

  • SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY OF RISK – INTRODUCTION WORKSHOP
  • Culture Silences in Safety – Linguistics
  • Culture Silences in Safety – Embodiment
  • Culture Silences in Safety – Holism
  • Culture Silences in Safety The Collective Unconscious
  • Culture Silences in Safety Artefacts
  • Culture Silences in Safety Symbolism
  • Culture Silences in Safety Mythology
  • The Safety Trifecta and Nothing Changes
  • Sleep Dysfunction, Dreaming and Safety

What is Psychological Safety at Work?

Footer

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address and join other discerning risk and safety people who receive notifications of new posts by email

Join 7,426 other subscribers

AUTHORS

  • Alan Quilley
    • Heinrich–Industrial Accident Prevention
    • The Problem With ZERO Goals and Results
  • Bernard Corden
    • After the goldrush
    • The Internationale
  • Bill Sims
    • Employee Engagement: Chocolate, Vanilla, or Strawberry?
    • Injury Hiding-How do you stop it?
  • Craig Clancy
    • Task Based vs Activity Based Safe Work Method Statements
    • Safety And Tender Submissions
  • Daniel Kirk
    • It’s easy being wise after the event.
    • A Positive Safety Story
  • Dave Whitefield
    • Safety is about…
    • Safety and Compliance
  • Dennis Millard
    • Are You Risk Intelligent?
    • Honey they get me! They get me at work!
  • Drewie
    • Downturn Doin’ Your Head In? Let’s Chat….
    • How was your break?
  • Gabrielle Carlton
    • All Care and No Care!
    • You Are Not Alone!
  • George Robotham
    • How to Give an Unforgettable Safety Presentation
    • How To Write a Safety Report
  • Goran Prvulovic
    • Safety Manager – an Ultimate Scapegoat
    • HSE Performance – Back to Basics
  • James Ellis
    • Psychological Core Stability for Wellbeing in Workers Comp
    • In search of plan B in workers’ recovery
  • James Parkinson
    • To laugh or not to laugh
    • People and Safety
  • John Toomey
    • In it for The Long Haul – Making the most of the FIFO Lifestyle
    • Who is Responsible for This?
  • Karl Cameron
    • Abby Normal Safety
    • The Right Thing
  • Ken Roberts
    • Safety Legislation Is Our Biggest Accident?
    • HSE Trip Down Memory Lane
  • Mark Perrett
    • Psychology of Persuasion: Top 5 influencing skills for getting what you want
  • Mark Taylor
    • Build a Psychologically Safe Workplace by Taking Risks and Analysing Failures
    • Enculturing Safety
  • Max Geyer
    • WHS Legislation is NOT about Safety it’s about Culture
    • Due Diligence Is Not Just Ticking Boxes!
  • Matt Thorne
    • Safety Culture–Hudson’s Model
    • Culture – Edgar Schein
  • Peter Ribbe
    • Is there “Common Sense” in safety?
    • Who wants to be a safety professional?
  • Phil LaDuke
    • Professional Conferences Are A Sleazy Con
    • Hey Idiots, You’re Worried About the Wrong Things
  • Admin
    • SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY OF RISK – INTRODUCTION WORKSHOP
    • Study Reveals an Unexpected Side Effect of Traffic Safety Messages
  • Dr Rob Long
    • Culture Silences in Safety – Linguistics
    • Culture Silences in Safety – Embodiment
  • Rob Sams
    • The Learning (and unlearning) that Revealed my Vocation
    • I’m just not that into safety anymore
  • Barry Spud
    • Things To Consider When Developing And Designing Your Company SWMS
    • Bad Safety Photos
  • Sheri Suckling
    • How Can I Get the Boss to Listen?
  • Simon Cassin
    • Safety values, ideas, behaviours and clothes
  • Safety Nerd
    • The Block isn’t portraying safety as it should be
    • Toolbox Talk Show–PPE
  • Wynand Serfontein
    • Why The Problem With Learning Is Unlearning
    • I DON’T KNOW
  • Zoe Koskinas
    • Why is fallibility so challenging in the workplace?

Most commented on

Forecasting Safety

The Banned Objects Index – A New Development in Safety Culture

The Unconscious and the Soap Dispenser

Dumbs for Safety

The Real Barriers to Safety

Safety as Faith Healing

Who Said We Don’t Need Systems?

Why Safety Controls Don’t Always Work

How to use signs, symbols and text effectively in communicating about risk

Safety Should NOT Be About Safety

FEATURED POSTS

Beware the Cult of Denial

The Risk Aversion Delusion

Psychology of Risk Post Graduate Program Suspended ‘til 2017

‘Man Up’ Safety

It’s not in the KPI or LTI but the MRI

Is Safety the Empire of Non-Sense?

Don’t Make Safety a Habit

The Perils of Excessive Safety Management Systems

Transdisciplinary Safety

The SEEK Investigations Donut

Keep Discovering

CLLR Christmas 2016 Newsletter and Competition

Regulation Madness

Human Factors is Never About Humans

Study at The Centre for Leadership and Learning in Risk

Safetie

Compliance, Obedience and The Attraction of Risk

Bounded Rationality–How Can Too Much Safety Be Bad For You?

The Convenience of Complacency

Safety is the Wrong Anchor

More Posts from this Category

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address and join other discerning risk and safety people who receive notifications of new posts by email

Join 7,426 other subscribers

How we pay for the high cost of running of this site – try it for free on your site

 

How To Make Your Own Hand Sanitizer

 

 

How to Make your own Covid-19 Face Mask

 

Covid-19 Returning To Work Safety, Transitioning, Start Up And Re Entry Plans

 

How’s the Hot Desking Going Covid?

imageOne of the benefits of the Covid-19 epidemic is a total rethink about how we live and work (https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-28/coronavirus-could-reshape-how-australians-work-forever/12097124 ).

Expertise by Regurgitation and Re-Badging

One of the fascinating things about the Coronavirus pandemic is watching Safety morph into epidemiology expertise. I would like a dollar for every flyer, presentation, podcast, powerpoint, checklist template, toolbox talk and poster set that had jumped into my inbox… Read the rest

The Stress of Stasis

One of the challenging things about the Coronavirus crisis is stasis. For those without work and confined to home, for those in self-isolation, it’s like life is frozen in time. ‘Stay at home’ is the mantra. The trouble is, in… Read the rest

loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.