you may need to know about

Accidents

OK, so you have to be careful out there – but how do you do it?

Know the risks

We face risks every day. For example, we 'risk' getting into trouble by being late for school or of getting into real danger if we make a mistake when crossing the road or taking part in an extreme sport.

Some risks - like walking into the traffic on a busy motorway - must be avoided if we want to get through the day alive. But it isn't possible to avoid all risk. If we tried to do that we'd probably never do anything at all. However we can try to look for the risks in the things we do and think about how to reduce them.

Individuals have responsibility for their own safety and can do much to keep themselves, and others, safe - however, this is not the whole story. People need a safe environment in which to live. This can be achieved by the introduction of laws and changing the environment around us - for example, making safer consumer products or the introduction of traffic calming.

Legislation and information

Legislation (laws), engineering (environmental change) and education can all be used to change behaviour and to reduce accidents. However, these methods work best together rather than individually. The most effective accident prevention programmes involve legislative and environmental changes backed up by educational programmes.

Providing people with information on the risks of accidents does not necessarily affect their behaviour. But people do become more receptive to safety advice through information campaigns. Information campaigns can also make changes in law more acceptable to the public. For example, the seat belt law was implemented in the 1980s after many advertising campaigns.