Why is not road safety treated the same way as aviation safety ?

[Ixion]

Air travel is about the safest form of travel there is. But the whole approach to aviation safety is totally different to that to road safety.

Imagine if air accidents invoked the same response as road accidents.

If an air accident (or even an incident) happens, an independant team of investigators will go to work, not to establish blame , or find someone to give a ticket to, but to objectively and scientifically determine WHY the accident occured.

They assume that nobody WANTS to crash, so if an accident happened it was because something went wrong. Equipment failure? Procedural defect? Human error ? and why? Fatigue? Inadequate training? etc .Once they have determined the cause(s) they formulate responses to prevent such accidents in the future .

How very different to road accidents, where a policeman conducts a cursory investigation, directed not at finding the cause (because that is invariably assigned as either speed or alcohol ) but rather to gather evidence to charge someone with something. So long as a prosecution results, noone cares if anything is done to prevent future accidents.

What if air accident investigation followed the same process ?

Pilot Officer Prune brings the 747 in to land too fast, on a wet runway in the dark. P O Prune qualified on 747s 30 years ago (easy enough, its only a scratch and win test and a half hour observed flight), but until today has only flown Cessnas. He hasn't had any briefing on 747s but vaguely remembers someone telling him the approach speed (though he's got it wrong). The control tower is unmanned, the government decided to save some money. Half the runway lights don't work, and there are some big potholes in the runway.

P O Prune does his best in the landing , but he's 50 knots too fast. One wheel hits a pothole , the plane slews, P O Prune jams on the brakes (no-one ever taught him how to deal with emergencies, his whole training was only 10 hours long) ; a wheel locks in the wet, the plane slews and leaves the runway, and clips a building. Several people are injured , one seriously.

A policeman arrives to investiagte. he determines that P O Prune was not drunk, and that therefore the crash must be caused by excessive speed. He charges P O Prune with dangerous flying, and he loses his licence. The police call for an immediate reduction of in flight aircraft speeds to a maximum of 200 knots.

Absurd, isnt it. yet's that's EXACTLY how we approach road accidents.

Is it not time that the repsonsibility for accident investigation (and determining who if anyone should be prosecuted) was removed form the police. They don't take it seriously, and do a piss poor job of it. An independant Road Accident Investigation department might make a big difference.

(Cross posted to the Safeas forum)

[candor]

Gooooood post. They are now deleting - everyone be aware. Today I find my slightly sarcy post questioning if the speed poll relate to over limit or excess for conditions (as after a 9mill advert campaign am not sure yet what sped means) has disappeared. So they are in defense mode. New need for subtlety damnit. So take care posting - be safeas or we won't "see ya there! "

[Skyryder]

There is an organisation set up for this but they do not investigate road accidents. The Transport Accident Investigation Commision, TAIC. There is no reason why this Crown Agency could not do what Ixion suggests. It would show impartiality and their findings could be used for prosecution by the Police should the need arise. Of course this is not going to happen due to the poor quality of New Zealand roads and the possible conflict of interest with the aims and goals of the Government's ROAD SAFETY STRATERGY 2010.

http://www.ltsa.govt.nz/strategy-2010/

SKYRYDER

[Motu]

Blame...blame something,blame someone - this country is set up to appoint blame.Not just Police and officials,but by the very population! Soon as something happens our first response is to make sure we can't be implicated by blameing someone or something else.No one will ever step up to the plate and say - ''I fucked up,it's all my fault.''

Until we can change the mindset of the Nation we haven't got a hope in hell of changing policy.

[Jantar]

If anything this aviation based philosophy should be taken a step further. In aviation, pilots are encouraged to report ALL incidents,not just accidents. This means that all pilots can learn from mistakes made by others. No prosecutions can result from this self reporting, but any lessons learnt are passed on.

In road safety it is just the opposite. Our poice have a blame mentality. If something has gone wrong, then someone is to blame and a prosecution must be laid. Even if nothing has gone wrong, but someone has broken an artificial rule, then that person is penalised.

We could see a big improvement in traffic safety by moving away from the blame and penalise system, to a report and learn one.

[marty]

i guess it comes down to economies of scale. i work in the aviation industry, and fly planes, and have a fair bit of experience in serious road crash investigation, so i guess i have a fair insight.

every aircraft incident is (supposed to be) reportd - near misses, airspace incursions, overruns, dings etc. each is investigated by a small team of experienced aviators.

i guess that is where the basis of the culture starts, unlike minor m/v crashes that go unreported/uninvestigated, leading to a more of an ambulance at the bottom mentality.

[Swoop]

I'm involved in an aviation safety review at the moment. Unfortunately the same approach to road safety is being applied by CAA. Find someone who can easily take the blame - and then hammer that person.

[Jantar]

I'm involved in an aviation safety review at the moment. Unfortunately the same approach to road safety is being applied by CAA. Find someone who can easily take the blame - and then hammer that person.

I hope that review is looking at a ground based company or person, and not flight crew. I'd hate to see our reporting system get compromised by arse covering.

[Swoop]

I hope that review is looking at a ground based company or person, and not flight crew. I'd hate to see our reporting system get compromised by arse covering.

Approx 25% ground and 75% air.
I haven't held comments back so far.

Too many egos involved with aviation.

[idb]

Yeah, I've never quite figured out why someone always has to be charged.
A friend of mine's 16 year old daughter was riding her scooter to work one morning when she rode up the back of a parked dark-coloured car.
She was carted off in an ambulance, scooter (bought new) was written off, she was off work with broken bits for six weeks and is only now back on light duties.
I apportion no blame to anyone here - sometimes shit happens.
The cops have charged her with reckless or dangerous something or other.

Now, the poor chick has rooted her bike, wrecked herself and lost considerable income - now they want to make sure she gets a conviction that will affect her future insurance premiums and excesses.

The point escapes me somehow.

[marty]

one main reason for the depth of investigation is that many aviation accidents result in a death, and therefore the matter needs to be investigated back, to eliminate/prove the cause of death, or if you like, the cause of the crash. aircraft engineers are often held responsible for an aircraft failure, and if blame can be apportioned, then it will be. the checks and balances for an LAME is much greater than it is for an A grade mechanic, in fact the 2 jobs cannot be compared. i have worked with both - i am an LAME - and most auto mechs that i have seen turning their hands to aircraft are, frankly, cringeworthy.

for the last 10 or so years every fatal car crash has been investigated as a homicide in the first instance, although there is significant public pressure (esp in auckland) to not close down fatal car crash scenes for more than 2 hours, even though often a day is needed to investigate a scene that may cover 100m, 2 or 3 bodies, and any number of vehicles. how long does it take to do a scene investigation? have a look and see how long a house/school/park is closed off for when a dead body is found. that is how long a road would need to be closed to do it properly.

it is an accepted risk of driving that you may be involved in an accident, however people percieve that they can get into a plane and it arrive safetly without hitting anything. change the accepted risk, change the attitude to prevention rather than reaction

[sAsLEX]

i am LAME

Might pay to use the full meanign before throwing the acronym out there

Lead Aircraft Maintanence Engineer is my guess

[Titanium]

How many hours and how many $ to get a PPL or even go solo? vs how many hours and how many $ to get a car licence?

When I was a widdle air force cadet..... I could fly a plane before I could drive a car.

Not sure what I mean but......

[Finn]

Blame...blame something,blame someone - this country is set up to appoint blame.Not just Police and officials,but by the very population! Soon as something happens our first response is to make sure we can't be implicated by blameing someone or something else.No one will ever step up to the plate and say - ''I fucked up,it's all my fault.''

Until we can change the mindset of the Nation we haven't got a hope in hell of changing policy.

You are absolutely right Motu.

But I still think you're a ignorant grease monkey on many other issues.

[Jantar]

In 37 years of aviation (1 more than motorcycling) I have self reported 3 incidents. In 2 cases I was pilot in command, although not pilot at the controls when the incident first developed. In one of these cases, an incipient spin from 250 feet, I was able to take control quickly enough to keep it as an incident (otherwise I wouldn't be typing this now), the other one did result in a heavy landing causing damage. In the 3rd incident I was CFI and had authourised a student flight that almost went horribly wrong.

In each of these cases, if the aviation world worked the same way as the police do things with traffic, I would have been charged with some offence, so would not have reported any of these. In aviation though, I did report them, and because of one of these incidents, along with a similar one that did result in a fatal at Drury, the flight manual for one type of aircraft has been changed.

So rather than punishing someone, future loss of life can now be avoided.