‘THINK!’

If you were asked to come up with a one-word definition of safety, or a one-word key to achieving it, in one word, what would be your reply? Would you suggest alertness, meaning always being ready for the unexpected? Would your vote be for skill—being especially adept? Would you define safety as experience, suggesting that the veteran never gets hurt?

Perhaps you would settle on cooperation as the key to safety, meaning that it requires us to exercise patience and get along with our fellow worker. Or, after due deliberation, might you finally define safety by using the single word thinking?
Certainly alertness, skill, experience, and cooperation are all associated with safety, and contribute to it, but since they in turn require thought, they must be regarded as secondary characteristics.

Some years ago, a prominent business executive constantly urged his staff to "Think!" He had THINK! signs posted in numerous locations and made the word virtually a corporate slogan—which became a symbol of his company’s success. 
It can symbolize—and lead to—success in reducing accidents and injuries, as well. It has often been said that about 90 percent of all accidents can be attributed to unsafe acts on the part of the worker, and failure to think before acting is the cause of practically all accidents in this category.

For example:

• A carpenter removes a guard from a table saw for the purpose of expediency; an injury results. The carpenter has not given thought to the original purpose of the guard and has suffered the unfortunate consequences.

• A machinist, again for the sake of saving time, fails to don safety goggles for a project that will "only take a minute." Again, injury results because of the operator’s failure to think of the possible negative result.

• A truck driver, exercising legitimate right of way, is nevertheless involved in an accident. Why? Failure to realize that the other party involved might not grant that right of way, whether as the result of ignorance or impatience.

Many accidents can be averted if we will only discipline ourselves to think carefully about consequences before acting. When we THINK safety, we act safely.