Forum brings together industry leaders and regulators to discuss safety culture

In its first forum on safety culture in 16 years, the National Transportation Safety Board gathered academics, regulators and leaders from multiple transportation organizations in September of 2013 in response to recent high-profile fatal transportation incidents linked to poor decision-making. Even though transportation safety culture has been identified as a "top priority" by the Department of Transportation Safety Council, there is difficulty in using regulations to influence transportation safety culture. This can be attributed to the fact that overly flexible regulations may allow unsafe carriers to continue operating, while overly strict regulations can negatively impact safety culture by, for example, discouraging workers from continued reporting, creating a negative and secretive culture. Instead, incentives are recommended for good safety performance, as well as encouraging regulators to take on more of an educational role by providing companies with resources. Face-to-face interactions between workers and safety professionals, as opposed to surveys or metrics, provide the best feedback on how to improve the safety culture for an organization. Employee safety training is important, as well as reducing barriers that prevent employees from making safe decisions. Examples of this include providing access to a sleep center to make it less costly for employees to seek treatment for a sleep disorder, or allowing employees the option of a free hotel room if they are too tired to drive through the night.

• Record URL:
  • http://www.nsc.org/news_resources/nsc_publications/Documents/trafficSafety/ts.12.13.pdf
• 
• Availability:
  • Find a library where document is available. Order URL: http://worldcat.org/issn/00410721
• Publication Date: 2013-12

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Print
• Features: Figures; Photos;
• Pagination: p 1
• Serial:
  • Traffic Safety
  • Volume: 13
  • Issue Number: 12
  • Publisher: National Safety Council
  • ISSN: 0041-0721

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Policy; Safety education; Strategic planning; Transportation safety
• Identifier Terms: U.S. National Transportation Safety Board
• Uncontrolled Terms: Forums
• Subject Areas: Education and Training; Safety and Human Factors; Transportation (General); I83: Accidents and the Human Factor;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01502290
• Record Type: Publication
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Dec 23 2013 11:06AM