Risk and Safety Basics
The possibility of harm or loss.
What is risk?
A pilot misreading a gauge is this type of accident.
What is procedural?
Nuclear plant featured in the 1979 movie The China Syndrome.
What is a fictional California plant?
U.S. Navy program created after the USS Thresher sinking.
What is SUBSAFE?
94% of roadway deaths tied this type of error.
What is human error?
Freedom from damage, injury, or risk.
What is safety?
A turbine blade cracking mid-flight is this type.
What is engineered?
Location of the 1979 U.S. nuclear accident.
What is Three Mile Island?
NASA culture problem that contributed to Challenger.
What is normalization of deviance?
Main safety promise of driverless cars
What is fewer accidents?
Choosing to live near a chemical plant is this type of risk.
What is voluntary risk?
Many small errors combining into a disaster.
What is systemic?
The Soviet nuclear disaster caused by poor design and secrecy.
What is Chernobyl?
Organization type that prevents failure despite complexity.
What are high reliability organizations?
Key public factor needed for adoption of autonomous vehicles.
What is trust?
Illness that heals vs. permanent disability shows this factor in risk perception.
What is short-term vs. long-term consequences?
Perrow’s term for inevitable failures in complex, tightly coupled systems.
What is a normal accident?
Japanese nuclear disaster triggered by a tsunami.
What is Fukushima?
Automotive case where corporate design priorities outweighed safety, leading to fires.
What is the Ford Pinto?
Google’s Chris Urmson wanted this from the federal government.
What is light regulation to allow innovation?
A method that weighs harm against benefit in dollar terms
What is risk–benefit analysis?
Snowden leaks and Amazon outages are examples of this new form.
What are data accidents?
Airline that crashed in the Everglades due to mishandled oxygen canisters.
What is ValuJet Flight 592?
The core question: meeting the legal standard vs. this higher duty.
What is ethical responsibility?
Mary Cummings emphasized this role for government.
What is stronger oversight and safety standards?