Turning the Light on Inattention

摘要

In the last few years there has been a noticeable increase in the number of articles and alerts (including some from regulatory authorities) attributing incidents to inattention and/or complacency. Why do so many people still get hurt even though we do so much to try and keep them safe? Most incidents don't happen because the person wasn't competent, didn't know the hazard was present or what controls were required. Incidents typically happen because the person wasn't paying attention at the time, and as a result came into contact with a hazard. Traditional approaches to rectify this concentrate on: 1. Retraining, in case the problem was a lack of knowledge. 2. Reviewing the decision making framework, in case it was a "bad" decision or the "wrong" choice. 3. Discipline, in case it was a deliberate act. However, the problem of inattentiveness is not able to be solved by the traditional approaches listed above. We are accustomed to blaming tiredness, problems at home, outside distractions and other external factors that are outside our control. A number of research projects have identified that over 95% of personal safety incidents involved human error leading to an unsafe act. In addition, they have identified the specific behavioural patterns that cause in human error resulting from the "autopilot" mode that enables 95% of our actions. People can't control distractions and external factors. This presentation teaches people how mistakes are made and what can be done to help people manage their "autopilot" mode better to prevent incidents.