TABLE OF CONTENTS When you have studied this chapter, you will have:
some appreciation of the possible philosophical approaches to defining "How safe is safe enough?";
an understanding of the principles behind typical statutory requirements; and
some appreciation of the philosophical and moral issues involved.
This chapter addresses step 5, "Define Risk Targets," of risk management in Figure 1-4.
Everyone lives with a degree of risk. This may result from some activity one undertakes voluntarily oneself, or from some external activity undertaken by others, or from some natural event.
By choice, people over the ages have come to live in communities, rather than by themselves. They do this because they perceive that the benefits of living in communities outweigh the disadvantages. For example, the majority of people live in cities, towns, or other settlements, because of the convenience of such life, such as closeness to employment, shops, transport, medical care, entertainment, and provision of services such as power, water, drainage, and garbage removal, in spite of the chance that their neighbors may be troublesome, that they may be involved in transport accidents, that they may have their houses burglarized, etc.
Different people perceive the advantages and disadvantages of community life differently. In particular, people have different perceptions of the acceptability of risk.
Much of the enjoyment of rock climbing comes from overcoming the sense of exposure to risk, in undertaking an activity which can result in serious injury or fatality if a mistake is made. One only needs to listen...
