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Old 08-25-2016, 12:18 PM   #95
BandB
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City: Fort Lauderdale. Florida, USA
Join Date: Jan 2014
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Quote:
Originally Posted by psneeld View Post
I think if you had extensive training like Baker and a few others have had in human factors and accidents...you might think a bit differently.

When I was leaving USCG safety....the military was about to condemn the word accident as it was archaic in situation where injury, loss or damage was unacceptable.

Zero accidents is the goal, probably not attainable, but the recent study of human factors in "accidents" over the last 30 years has made great advances in reducing them.

A great example was (at least in the early years) was vector charts. Cheap, easy to use...but the downside was zooming out and losing important detail. Without a mechanism to overcome that, a helmsman might miss something that had been on paper nautical charts for decades. Training, awareness, double checking, secondary automation, etc are all tools to help.
Wifey B: Did you ever see where I said training doesn't help and accidents can't be reduced? I don't think so. I said you'd still have some regardless. I also said, having paper charts wasn't going to eliminate them. There is human error. Pilots are well trained. Yet, we still see pilot error. Professional mariners still screw up. Always will. My hubby is big on zero lost days in business. Then somebody does something just insanely stupid. The lady who insists on a warning sign to watch your head when taking the steps over the converyor then hits her head crossing the next day after the sign is put up. They put dual hand controls on fabric pressing equipment so you had to have both hands on it to operate it and couldn't get burned. They didn't anticipate someone somehow hoisting themselves to sit on the open press and burning their backside bad. Had this boat operator been better trained and more experienced, it probably wouldn't have happened but whether the chart was paper or plastic or electronic wasn't going to prevent the possibility.

And my favorite injury I saw not long ago on one of our store reports. "Injured shutting drawer to cabinet. Injured left breast." Fortunately no lost time.

I appreciate safety training and emphasis. I just thought we were getting a bit far fetched in paper vs. electronic and vector vs raster as having anything to do with this specific accident. The operator just screwed up.

In other situations the chart quality could well be a factor. I see people using microscopically mini little screens sometimes and I see people with 40 year old charts. I heard a captain tell a boater one day, not all that politely and in language I'm far too much of a lady to use (well, not really but can't here), "Those %%! charts belong either in the trash or hanging on a wall as an antique. You see that bridge (he pointed in the distance)? Of course you don't see the ^&@ bridge, it wasn't built until 20 years after this chart. This inlet showing 12' is shoaled halfway across and doesn't have more than 6' even in what's left of the channel." It's also one thing to use your cell phone for your gps, but I heard about someone using their smartphone (not even a tablet or laptop) for their navigation software. I would like to say I didn't believe it, but I do. I've seen stoopid.

I believe in training, that's why I've gotten what I have, and equipment, we have it all. But none of it makes a mistake impossible.
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