Are you a risk taker? Chances are that you’re not. Once it was glamorous to be a risk taker, exciting to be perceived as someone who’d chance their arm for a bit of excitement or good fortune. Not any more. Taking a risk is now perceived as foolhardy and risk taking has become a euphemism for recklessness.
Thanks to the endless thrust of litigation, everyone in society now has to manage risk and manage their exposure to accusations of risk taking. No longer are accidents – of any kind – ‘just one of those things’, they are the result of negligence and must never happen again.
We witnessed it this week. The enquiry into why south London was plunged into darkness recently revealed that a mistake had been made when installing some equipment. It was an unlikely scenario that led to the black out and the final link in the chain that broke was discovered to be the wrong fuse having been installed. This was despite rigorous procedures, inspections and form signing in triplicate by people with long job titles. My view – it was just one of those things. Yet the TV was full of sound bites this week with politicians with mouths larger than their majorities spouting off “it must never be allowed to happen again”. It’s a soundbite that we hear week in and week out now.
We’ve been brought up to understand that we must assess the risk in a situation for ourselves and act accordingly. We were taught to cross the road safely – if we were knocked down in the road, the assumption was that we were in the wrong, not that the car driver was a murdering evil speed obsessed maniac.
When I go to a track day, I understand that I may come off the track, smash up my car, even kill myself. Yet I found myself at Bedford Autodrome recently signing an extra indemnity declaring that I understood the extra risks associated with driving a car without roll over protection. Did the chap in the GT2 Porsche have to sign another indemnity because his is capable of nearly 200mph? Which is more dangerous? Who’s assessed this risk… and why?
As a society we do of course have to manage the level of risk that people take if the consequences affect society as a whole. Making car occupants wear seat belts is a fairly clear cut risk/reward equation. Insisting that motorcyclists wear helmets can be justified from society’s perspective if it has to pick up the costs of death and injury. Where do we draw the line though? Should cars be engineered to a point where they are incapable of causing death to pedestrians? How much risk is acceptable risk and how much risk is a lawsuit fearing society prepared to tolerate?
We are not so far from having the expectation that the future generations will grow up in risk free societies. There is no risk in the workplace any more. Health and Safety measures now cover every flavour of business and insist that no one is exposed to any risk whilst on the job. Gone are the days of taking dangerous, exciting jobs for the danger money. How many workers get an adrenaline rush any more? The workplace is safe – have no fear, have no excitement, just have your rights.
Even the fear of being out of work has been removed. Whilst as a society we must care for those that can’t care for themselves, why are we ‘caring’ for those that can, but can’t be bothered? Don’t want to work? No need. Don’t want to pay for the food to keep you alive? No need. Don’t want to pay for the roof over your head? No need. The risk has been removed – there’s no danger in being lazy any more.
Those too lazy to work but still with a taste for the high life do of course turn to crime. Risky business? Not so you’d believe. If you get caught – chances are that you won’t – then what are you risking? Your liberty? Your ‘good’ name? A fine which you can’t afford to pay anyway? Community Service? The risk isn’t what it was in the past. Penal colonies… the death penalty… hard labour… public floggings. Whilst I don’t advocate some of the more barbaric of these punishments, isn’t it about time that we devised some punishments that potential wrong doers would genuinely fear? Our do-gooding society has made the risks too small and the rewards too great.
Unless we draw a line in the sand now and halt the relentless march of risk-avoidance, a hundred years from now our grandchildren will live in a society devoid of adrenaline. Ask yourself - when did you last take a risk?
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