Vol. 56, No. 1 — January 1975 —
About Attaining
Your Life Expectancy
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Some people enjoy the spice of danger, but
today's dangers are too dangerous to trifle with. It has been
estimated that there are 350 deaths from needless accidents
in North America every day. In one year in Canada, accidental
death claimed 8,480 male citizens and 3,551 female citizens.
Traffic accidents account for about half this loss of life;
accidents in the home cause 20 per cent of all accident fatalities.
During almost the whole of the time that mankind has been
living on this planet his life has been a continual struggle
to keep himself alive and to rear his young.
The four features contributing toward our hope of living
long are: physical well-being, emotional control, respect
for danger, and the desire to live.
Things that we brush off as "chance occurrences" are not
uncaused. Voltaire said that we invented the word "chance"
to express the known effect of unknown causes. To be safe,
we need to uncover the things and situations that threaten
our safety and eliminate them or avoid them.
In the big industrial concerns, physical dangers are to
a great extent guarded; fumes and dust are trapped and sucked
away; good hygienic standards exist.
Most industrial accidents, generally about 85 per cent,
are the results of unsafe acts. Devices, however ingenious
and effective they may be, are futile unless they are used
by the workers. Having a safety programme is not a guarantee
of safety, but a means toward safety that must be respected.
Offices, too, have their hazards: slippery stairs and floors;
open file cabinets; dangling telephone cords and typewriter
connections; swinging doors, faulty chairs, and cluttered
aisles.
The key to a good safety programme in workshop or office
or home is organization. There should be safety standards;
education and training; warning signals and mechanical protection
and inspections.
Many associations are at work in the field of business and
industry to propagate safety: this Monthly Letter is
addressed particularly to homes.
Causes of accidents
Among the causes predisposing us to accidents are our emotions,
worry and anxiety, anger and fatigue. When one's brain gets
out of gear the drive of emotion heads us toward a smash.
Emotions can block the senses so that we are really "deafened"
or "blinded" to possible dangers. They interfere with clear
thinking.
Being in a bad humour is a dangerous state. A person in
cheerful, kindly, happy mood is less likely to incur an accident
than one in a mood of discontent, grief or despair. When we
are irritated, feeling below par or frustrated, we have to
be extra careful in everything we do, for these feelings make
us sitting ducks for accidents.
Irritability may arise from unsatisfied desires or the annoying
actions of people. A succession of irritations over trifles
- and some days seem to be full of them - may build up a condition
that makes it impossible to exercise control in an emergency.
We may drive the car without care, or walk the streets without
caution, or handle a tool negligently. When we feel an irritation
nagging at us we should try it out for size: is it big enough
to justify us in risking our lives?
Boredom, which is essentially a thwarted desire for events,
and despondency over the course of personal or world affairs,
invite us to go on a spree of danger-courting. Some people
believe that the only remedy for these mental upsets is action,
and the action they take may be hasty and unthinking. Others
take as their patron saint St. Vitus, and are nervous, high-strung
and tense. They worry like the centipede which was asked by
a frog: "Which of your hundred legs do you move first?"
A person who keeps in good temper is more secure from accidents
than one who is angry. Anger is not only one of the seven
deadly sins but one of the unbalancing forces that incline
us to do dangerous acts. It makes us less ready than usual
for accuracy of thought, and interferes with our exercise
of control in an emergency.
We are not only likely to speak harshly when angry, but
to behave recklessly. When we bruise our shins on a chair
in a dark room the emotion of anger often instinctively arises
before reflection shows that the chair was not to blame. Then
we kick the chair and we hurt our toes.
When the feeling of anger arises, all bodily changes, such
as scowling, clenching the fists and quickened heartbeat,
are reflected back upon the mind, lessening its capacity for
reasonable thought.
Fatigue, another ingredient of accidents, is a device of
nature to keep us within safe limits. It makes sufficient
rest of body and mind obligatory.
A special case - children
Children's safety is the paramount interest of adults and
it requires special attention. All the ordinary safety precautions
apply, but more is needed because children have not the experience
to make them careful.
It is not possible to protect children from accidents by
vaccine or toxoids. There are, however, two preventive measures
that should be used: educate the children and remove all potential
dangers.
The drill for assuring the safety of children is: (1) remove
hazards; (2) set a good example; (3) watch and guide the children.
When small children are left in the care of a babysitter,
a check list should be given the sitter. It will tell where
to reach the parents; when to give food; telephone numbers
of doctor, police, fire department, janitor and neighbours.
Having taken the obvious precautions for your child's safety,
do a little extra thinking about what more you can do. In
case of danger, a cat will remove her kittens, one by one,
but will always make an extra journey, at whatever hazard,
to see if there are any more left.
Use your senses
Use your senses to detect danger. Your ears will warn you
that a machine is defective, or improperly adjusted, or needs
lubrication. Your eyes, when on the alert, will see a potentially
dangerous obstacle or an object that may fall on you. Your
sense of smell will warn you about gas or chemical leaks,
over-heated bearings or smouldering rags. Your sense of touch
will make you aware of excessive vibration or over-heating.
Your common sense tells you that paying attention to all
your other senses spells safety. There is no use in having
your five physical senses awake and in good running order
if your common sense is asleep.
Some people flirt with death without realizing that they
are doing so. They do not use their intelligence, the crowning
glory of mankind. Knowledge and sagacity are the father and
mother of safety, when they are heeded. Good safety management
involves clear-sighted ability to detect possible danger;
it includes recognizing how the various factors - people,
environment, machines - affect one another, and it applies
this knowledge to an appraisal of what you should do for self-protection.
Your environment is not the wide-open spaces so often referred
to in connection with air and water pollution. It presses
close upon you. It is everything around you. It includes the
clothes you wear, the tools and implements you use, the mechanical
things in workshop, laundry, and kitchen, and the floors you
walk on.
When this environment is well known to you, and you move
circumspectly in it, you are contributing to your safety.
If you allow it to become disordered, you live under risk
of an accident.
Good housekeeping in home or factory or office is a safety
device of importance. A cluttered, messy work area is an invitation
to trouble, yet some people persist in strewing work surfaces
and floors with bundles and heaps, spilling greasy substances
on the floor, scattering tools and materials, and leaving
heavy objects poised dangerously against walls.
The way to combat this menace is to practise the safe way
of doing things so that it becomes habitual. Then you will
automatically avoid dangerous situations. A sensible warning
was given us in picturesque terms by a philosopher: "He who
is not a bird should not camp above abysses."
Accommodate your actions to the nature of your environment.
Prudence consists in knowing what dangers there are, distinguishing
the character of possible troubles, and proceeding in such
a way as to avoid danger.
Patience is an ingredient of safety. Some people are prudent
and some are impulsive; some can stand waiting and some can
not. It is desirable to cultivate the ability to wait if it
should become advisable in the interests of preserving your
life. A person who habitually acts on impulse is gambling
with his safety, and often suffers the bitter consequences
of over-hasty action.
If you are keen and attentive you will know when to be cautious
and particularly careful. Danger of accident grows under the
favour of heedlessness, which is apt to be the outcome of
over-confidence. There was a town in Scotland whose motto
was: "Beware when all things are safe."
Accidents are a symptom of inefficiency. Failing to judge
properly the speed of a car; not reading the label on a medicine
bottle; neglecting to open the switch before changing a bulb:
these are errors of omission that cause accidents. A poet
wrote: if you are going to thrust your hand among thorns,
wear a leather glove.
Look ahead: look around
In an age when government agencies watch and record the
level of water in rivers and lakes so as to warn people of
impending flood danger, and keep track of hurricanes from
the time they are spawned so as to protect life by giving
storm warnings, there remains an environment of individual
living where we must set up our own detection and warning
systems.
Trusting to luck in this area is a poor substitute for planning
to live. The effort involved in making sure of safety, insofar
as it can be attained, is a small price to pay. It requires
only that we make a careful survey to detect dangerous practices
and places and take suitable measures to eliminate or minimize
the dangers.
A survey revealed what parts of the home need special attention.
It showed the percentage of accidents occurring in certain
areas: dining and kitchen quarters 30; living and sleeping
quarters 18; porch, yard, etc. 24; stairs 12; bath room 3;
cellar 3; hallway 2; garage 1.
Go through your home from top to bottom and list every place
and article that is potentially dangerous. Take note of fire
hazards, obstacles, electric wires, frayed rugs and torn linoleum,
slippery floors, loose scatter rugs, and articles hanging
from the ceiling or leaning against walls.
Use your imaginative foresight in this survey. Just because
no one has been hurt up to now when he climbed on a rickety
stool or crossed a slippery floor is not a good reason for
failing to fix these things so that the accident you can imagine
happening does not occur. Safety for your family means looking
ahead and taking preventive measures.
Once a year inspection and positive action in getting rid
of everything that provides a hazard will give you peace of
mind.
Some critical points
Falls are among the most common causes of death and injury.
Thousands of people are victims of gravity every year. For
elderly people falls are often fatal.
Carrying an armful of articles that you cannot see over
is a sure way to risk your life. It may be possible to "feel
your way" downstairs, but we recall the old song in which
the refrain was: "He stepped on a step that wasn't there,
and his day's work was done."
Children under five years of age are the victims of falls
from windows, porches and stairs, in the age group 5 to 14
years many deaths result from falls in sports and play, from
trees and roofs and down steep embankments. In the 15 to 64
age group most falls occur on stairs and steps; many others
are from ladders and step stools and boxes. For the over 65
age group, falls on stairs and slippery floors or scatter
rugs account for most accidents. Poor lighting contributes
to the frequency of falls.
Outside the house the principal dangers are falls from ladders
and tripping over branches, hose and toys. There was a bomber
pilot who survived an 8,000-foot fall in 1944 without a parachute,
and thirty years later fell over a garden hose and broke his
leg.
Fires take a big toll of life every year. Statistics show
that nearly half of all home fires in Canada are caused by
careless smokers. It is 238 years since Benjamin Franklin
prepared a paper telling how to avoid starting fires by accident
or carelessness, but carelessness is still the prime cause
of home fires.
A tour of inspection in your home may give the appearance
at a glance of total readiness to deal with a fire: there
may be a fire extinguisher on every floor; stairways, halls
and doorways may be clear of obstacles; sand and other dry
materials may be at hand to deal with electrical fires. But
there is much else to consider. Does everyone in the house
know the escape routes, how to handle extinguishers effectively,
and the telephone number to dial for fire department help?
Approved electrical equipment is safe when installed and
properly used. All except the most elementary repairs should
be made by professional electricians. Before fixing anything
electrical, lock out the power source. Throwing a switch at
any particular piece of apparatus may not be enough: pull
the plug or remove the fuse of the circuit or open the master
switch.
Everyone in a household old enough to understand such things
should know where to switch off electric power. It is a good
idea to attach a length of string or rope to the handle of
the main switch so that it can be reached with ease.
The safety rule prohibiting switches and outlets in the
bath room is widely disregarded, so particular care is needed.
Never touch a switch or an outlet when your hands are wet.
Do not touch an electric appliance and a water pipe or a radiator
at the same time. It is good practice to keep one hand in
your pocket or behind you. Do not meddle with electric connections
when you are barefoot. These are precautions that should be
made habitual by everyone, however expert he may be. A man
who was a genius in electronics absentmindedly picked up the
live end of an electrical connection while barefoot, with
disastrous results.
On the streets
Most violators of traffic laws would maintain that they
are far from being ignorant of what is right or wrong, but
many of them have the incurable ignorance of thinking that
wrong does not matter.
Every time a driver gets into his car he has at the touch
of his foot the most dangerous weapon he is ever likely to
handle.
A. G. Wynne Field, A.I.I.C., editor of publications for
the General Accident (Insurance) Group in Canada, wrote in
"Sanctioned Violence and Bad Semantics": "Crashes are not
accidents: they are caused. Semantically it is time we stopped
gracing them with the euphemism 'accident'. Then we could
start an educational programme to reduce the violence."
Drivers, having learned how to annihilate space, put themselves
in constant danger of annihilating one another.
It is easy to let the speed needle climb without noticing
it. An ordinarily cautious driver, on a straight and nearly
empty highway through monotonous country, did not notice that
she was travelling at 92 miles per hour until her husband
drew her attention to the speedometer.
Highway accidents, whether they result in a crushed fender
or a death, are caused by the ignorance, impatience, carelessness,
selfishness or aggressiveness of someone.
It would be difficult to find in the history of mankind
a problem that has been so inefficiently dealt with as that
of traffic. We can go to the moon, but to get from point to
point on earth safely is still beyond a guarantee. The shameful
record of automobile deaths started in New York on September
13, 1895: today, even twenty or thirty highway fatalities
in a province over a week-end do not rate front page news
coverage.
No 100 per cent safety
There is no such thing as 100 per cent safety. Here and
now living means facing built-in accident possibilities. Robert
Benchley, whose humour centred about the difficulties of the
average middle-class citizen in contact with the complexities
of the 20th century social and mechanical life, remarked:
"My only solution for the problem of habitual accidents is
for everybody to stay in bed all day. Even then, there is
always the chance that you will fall out."
Life cannot be freed from all danger, and if it were it
would become intolerably tedious. A ship that stays in harbour
is safe, but that is not what ships are built for. There would
be small satisfaction for a competent golfer in playing a
course that was all green, with no fairway, no rough, no traps
and no hazards.
Absolute safety is a will o' the wisp, but obvious booby
traps should, in the name of common sense, be removed.
Fear can be a person's best friend. It is a healthy mechanism,
an alarm bell, a warning of impending danger. It can stir
one to prepare for the worst while hoping for the best.
Most people have the courage to encounter danger, but do
not go seeking it. They do not do reckless things to show
that they are not cowards. They pinpoint what there is to
be afraid of, and prepare for it. As Churchill remarked: "It
is very much better sometimes to have a panic feeling beforehand,
and then to be quite calm when things happen, than to be extremely
calm beforehand and to get into a panic when things happen."
How to play safe
Canada could become a safer country in which to live if
every community had a local safety council. This is, in the
words of the Ontario Department of Transport, "a group of
citizens determined to make their community a safer place
to live in by fighting the scourge of preventable accidents."
The members are representatives of all groups interested in
the welfare of the community. The council finds out where
effort is needed, and then takes action to promote it. It
covers all types of safety promotion - home, street, water,
fire and recreation.
Safety Leagues in the provinces make available booklets
on fire prevention, home safety, traffic safety, and safety
in industry. St. John Ambulance has prepared a series of training
films featuring simulated case histories. Workmen's Compensation
Boards from all the provinces contributed to the cost. These
films, though designed for in-plant training of employees,
have shown outstanding usefulness in promoting safety measures
in the employees' homes.
C. J. Laurin, who has given distinguished service in the
promotion of safety, published in 1974 his 108-page book entitled
Help Yourself. Mr. Laurin pioneered the St. John
Ambulance Emergency First Aid Course to make practical the
teaching of safety-oriented first aid on a very wide scale.
Supported by the Workmen's Compensation Board of Ontario and
the Industrial Accident Prevention Association, he set up
a major, world-first, controlled research project to establish
the relationship between a widespread knowledge of safety-oriented
first aid and a reduction in the frequency and cost of accidents.
His book is distributed by the I.A.P.A., 2 Bloor Street East,
Toronto, Ont.
The Boy Scouts, the Girl Guides, the Wolf Cubs and the Brownies
all stress safety through skill. Some schools have study periods
devoted to safety. The police andager to provide instructors
to address groups on safety measure fire departments of municipalities
are es.
Expect to live
Life expectancy in Canada is 71.4 years for men and 77.3
years for women, but this does not guarantee that everyone
will live out that span. If you seek to live that long or
longer you must avoid the moment's carelessness or thoughtlessness
that can cut you off prematurely. This is something that you
cannot leave to others. It is strictly personal.
When your inspection of your home and your way of life reveals
that a dangerous situation or a dangerous habit exists, it
will not vanish through your turning away from it. It should
be confronted squarely and dealt with intelligently.
Your safety is made up of little things. Walk a few feet
to throw a switch, to get a better tool, or to move an obstruction
from the floor; stand off a few feet to get a good look at
the apparatus you are going to work on; wait a few seconds
at the street intersection for the green light or the walk
signal; get a long, clear view before pulling out to pass
the car in front, and make your "turn" signal.
Your safety is a matter of foresight and the expenditure
of a few steps or a few seconds. These add to your expectation
of life.
Published by RBC Financial Group. All editions from the RBC
Letter collection are available on our web site at www.rbc.com/responsibility/letter.
Our e-mail address is: rbcletter@rbc.com.
Publié aussi en francais.
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