Life is risky – so we’d better get used to it
We devote enormous resources to eliminating risk. From roads and workplaces to recreation areas and public services, the emphasis today is on safety at all costs.
Have we gone too far?
In some spheres, we still accept quite a high level of risk to strike a balance with convenience and cost.
We can live with about 350 deaths and thousands of injuries on our roads each year so we can get around in our modestly priced cars.
Cars safe enough to protect even the most reckless driver could be made, and roads straightened and flattened. But the cost would be unaffordable.
Professional rugby is another area where, judging by the number of injuries and concussions, the risk of physical damage is regarded as normal.
Yet in other areas we accept draconian measures to eliminate a remote risk often highlighted by one random, freak event.
For instance, in 2014 Russell Tully strode calmly into the Work and Income office in Ashburton with a shotgun and killed two staff and shot another person.
As a result, the Ministry of Social Development instituted a range of security measures so rigorous that clients now feel its offices are like prisons.
I’m not saying we should not be appalled at Tully’s actions, but the measures seem excessive.
Of course, reaching the point of acceptable risk is hard.
Our tolerance of risk changes over time.
I’m old enough to remember the surprise people felt when it was decided to delay filling Lake Dunstan (it feeds the Clyde Dam power station) in 1992 as stabilisation work was done to the gorge walls above the dam.
It was feared that, in an earthquake, a huge slip could flop into the lake causing a wave big enough to breach the dam and flood the town of Clyde. Now everyone would agree the work had to be done.
For assessing risk we have to rely on experts who will usually err on the extreme side of caution, for obvious reasons including butt-covering.
Experts remove the decision from us, which in most respects is a good thing.
We wouldn’t want a democratic process for deciding what level of anaesthetic to use or what backup system should be built into a jetliner.
But two things happen. One is our own sense of self-preservation withers because we start to assume experts will have made the systems we rely on foolproof. The other is that we are more prone to blame someone else when things go wrong. Risk is somebody else’s business. You don’t have to go far for signs the pendulum has swung too far in favour of trying to take all the risk out of normal life.
How did we ever get on without traffic management and the people who arrange those orange cones so artfully? For that matter, how did any worker survive not being dressed in hi-vis clothing and other safety accessories?
The chlorination of Christchurch’s water also has the taint of a step too far. We all want to avoid the nasty and potentially lethal consequences of drinking contaminated water. The horrendous illness suffered by 5500 unfortunate citizens of Havelock North in 2016, when campylobacter infected the water supply, has left a lasting impression.
But did Christchurch, which has not had any problems with its acquifer-fed water supply, really need full-scale chlorination?
I’m sure if Christchurch people had been given a balanced account of the risk of contamination, they would have voted to live with it. It seems that ensuring wellheads are on well-drained sites, free of animals, would take care of most risk. Then comes the closure of New Plymouth’s Yarrow Stadium due to a geotechnical assessment of the land underneath the stands. Apparently the land could subside in an earthquake and bring the stands down with it.
Really? The stands were only built in 2002, and have had more money spent on them since. They are not railway bridges susceptible to damage in a big storm or sea surge. Neither are they high-rises on dodgy ground in Christchurch or Wellington. They are modest stands on land that has stood the test of time. Surely a second opinion is called for. To replace them will cost millions, and that money will not be available for other things like footpaths and road straightening. Which raises an important point. The money spent on eliminating risk in one area means less available to fix problems in other areas. In other words, the consequence of lowering risk in one sphere can hinder minimising risk in another one. Chew carefully on that one.
I forget which hobbit said that life becomes dangerous as soon as you step outside your front door. But maybe embracing a bit of risk won’t do us any harm.