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NO OFFENCE It was not my intention for my earlier

4th November 1999
Page 24
Page 24, 4th November 1999 — NO OFFENCE It was not my intention for my earlier
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

Keywords : Disaster / Accident

letter to cause offence (CM9-15 Sept). I have been actively involved in safety matters for almost 40 years and am aware that accidents can be traumatic for all involved, not just the immediate victims.

Learning from one's own experience can be painful and expensive, but learning from the experience of others costs nothing and can save lives. That, after all, is the basis of any educational system.

I have yet to encounter an "accident" which had only one cause. You can see potential accidents all around you if you are prepared to look, and often an incident is a catastrophe that didn't happen only because one link in the chain was broken.

Education is hugely more important than legislation, yet the law continues to judge road users' behaviour by the end result of their actions and punishes those who make errors. Meanwhile victims are made to wait interminably for justice and compensation.

Corporal punishment was banned in schools years ago, it being concluded that corrective action was a more effective option: surely punishing adults with heavy fines or imprisonment for transgressions is less effective than training to avoid such errors.

Any move to prevent carnage on the roads has my support, but safety will not be improved by diktat from someone driving a mahogany desk in Whitehall. Humans are fallible and we should be striving to reduce that fallibility. Education, in whatever form, plays a significant part in this. Anthony G

Salisbury, Wilts.

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