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Safety is the state of being "safe" (from French sauf), the condition of being protected
against physical, social, spiritual, financial, political, emotional, occupational,
psychological, educational or other types or consequences of failure, damage, error,
accidents, harm or any other event which could be considered non-desirable. Safety can
also be defined to be the control of recognized hazards to achieve an acceptable level of
risk. This can take the form of being protected from the event or from exposure to
something that causes health or economical losses. It can include protection of people or
of possessions.
Contents
[hide]
• 1 Meanings
• 2 Limitations
• 3 Types of safety
o 3.1 Normative safety
o 3.2 Substantive safety
o 3.3 Perceived safety
• 4 Risks and responses
• 5 System safety and reliability engineering
• 6 Safety measures
• 7 Standards organizations
o 7.1 United States
7.1.1 American National Standards Institute
7.1.2 Testing laboratories
7.1.3 Government agencies
o 7.2 Other countries
7.2.1 Standards institutions
7.2.2 Testing Laboratories
• 8 See also
• 9 External links
[edit] Meanings
There are two slightly different meanings of safety. For example, home safety may
indicate a building's ability to protect against external harm events (such as weather,
home invasion, etc.), or may indicate that its internal installations (such as appliances,
stairs, etc.) are safe (not dangerous or harmful) for its inhabitants.
[edit] Limitations
Safety can be limited in relation to some guarantee or a standard of insurance to the
quality and unharmful function of an object or organization. It is used in order to ensure
that the object or organization will do only what it is meant to do.
It is important to realize that safety is relative. Eliminating all risk, if even possible,
would be extremely difficult and very expensive. A safe situation is one where risks of
injury or property damage are low and manageable.
Normative safety is a term used to describe products or designs that meet applicable
design standards and protection.
Substantive, or objective safety means that the real-world safety history is favorable,
whether or not standards are met.
Perceived, or subjective safety refers to the level of comfort of users. For example, traffic
signals are perceived as safe, yet under some circumstances, they can increase traffic
crashes at an intersection. Traffic roundabouts have a generally favorable safety record,
yet often make drivers nervous.
Probably the most common individual response to perceived safety issues is insurance,
which compensates for or provides restitution in the case of damage or loss.
A common fallacy, for example among electrical engineers regarding structure power
systems, is that safety issues can be readily deduced. In fact, safety issues have been
discovered one by one, over more than a century in the case mentioned, in the work of
many thousands of practitioners, and cannot be deduced by a single individual over a few
decades. A knowledge of the literature, the standards and custom in a field is a critical
part of safety engineering. A combination of theory and track record of practices is
involved, and track record indicates some of the areas of theory that are relevant. (In the
USA, persons with a state license in Professional Engineering in Electrical Engineering
are expected to be competent in this regard, the foregoing notwithstanding, but most
electrical engineers have no need of the license for their work.)
Product safety testing, for the United States, is largely controlled by the Consumer
Product Safety Commission. In addition, workplace related products come under the
jurisdiction of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), which
certifies independent testing companies as Nationally Recognized Testing Laboratories
(NRTL), see [1].
Many government agencies set safety standards for matters under their jurisdiction, such
as:
Many countries have national organizations that have accreditation to test and/or submit
test reports for safety certification. These are typically referred to as a Notified or
Competent Body.
[edit] See also
• Accident
• Aircraft
o Air safety
o Accidents and incidents in aviation
o List of aircraft accidents
• Aisles: Safety and regulatory considerations
• Arc Flash
• Safety in Australia
• Automobile
o Car accident
o Automobile safety
o Traffic safety
• Bicycle
o Bicycle safety
• Boat
o Boat safety
• Certified safety professional
• Child
o Child safety seat
o Toy safety
o Poison control
o Safe Kids USA
• Consumer product safety
• Door#Door-related accidents
• Electrical safety
• Explosives safety
• Fire safety
• Gun safety
• List of rail accidents
• List of nuclear accidents
• Motorcycle safety
• Patient safety
• Pedestrian safety
• Private security
• Risk management
• Road safety
• Sailing ship accidents
• Safety engineering
o Fail-safe
o Fail-secure
o Poka-yoke
o Software System Safety
• Safety statement
• Security
• Seismic performance
• Sports injury safety
• Workplace safety
o Criticality accident
o Material safety data sheet
o Occupational safety and health
o Personal protective equipment
o Work accident
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