Another Approach to the Safety Problem

We have previously approached the safety problem as a moral principle. Now we should like to consider safety as the evidence of an inner attitude, for the inner attitude of a person tends to carry over into all outer activities. (We have talked before of temper as a mark of immaturity, and so, in many instances, are accidents⎯not immaturity of years only, but immaturity of emotion.)

Safety engineers, safety devices, and all the signs of safety that tell us to stop, look, and listen, to think, to be courteous, to be cautious, all help to insure a measure of safety⎯as do laws and codes and rules and regulations. But we must everlastingly remind ourselves that the human element always enters in. Safety is, after all, primarily a problem of people.

People for the most part, make situations safe or unsafe. Attitudes make situations safe or unsafe: Humility, integrity, courtesy, consideration, respect for life, respect for people, tend to make situations safe, or safer.

Anger, discourtesy, indifference, lack of humility, the cocksureness of conceit, and lack of respect for people, all contribute to making situations unsafe. (Also a bad conscience can make a situation unsafe. Any man whose conscience is gnawing at him doesn’t have his mind on his work as well as he should.)

Happiness and unhappiness in general are significant factors in safety. Indeed, one physician recently reported that “unhappiness may be the principle cause of death in modern society.” Another survey suggests that “a religious outlook is good protection against sudden death” and that “the high-accident group tended to be less conventional, . . . less in harmony with the world around them.” And it is easy to see why it is so.

If a person understands life’s purpose and respects his God-given privileges, he is less likely to be brash, and more likely to respect his own safety and survival, and that of others also, while the resentful or unconventional person is less likely to consider consequences. And we would say to all who have been given the privilege of living life: Preserve it against abuse, against illness, against accidents, your own and all others also. Be alert. Be courteous. Be cautious. Be considerate. And don’t strike out on any road, or any job, or on any errand in anger. Live long and well and thoughtfully, and let other men live likewise⎯to a fullness and wholeness and happiness of life.