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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 1 Meanings 2 Limitations 3 Types of safety 3.1 Normative safety 3.2 Substantive safety 3.3 Perceived safety 4 Risks and responses 5 System safety and reliability engineering 6 Safety measures 7 Standards organizations 7.1 United States 7.1.1 American National Standards Institute 7.1.2 Testing laboratories 7.1.3 Government agencies 7.2 Other countries 7.2.1 Standards institutions 7.2.2 Testing Laboratories 8 See also 9 External links 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. 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. Types of safety

It is important to distinguish between products that meet standards that are safe and those that merely feel safe. The highway safety community uses these terms: Normative safety

Normative safety is a term used to describe products or designs that meet applicable design standards and protection. Substantive safety

Substantive or objective safety means that the real-world safety history is favorable whether or not standards are met. Perceived safety

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 recordcitation needed yet often make drivers nervous. Risks and responses

Safety is generally interpreted as implying a real and significant impact on risk of death injury or damage to property. In response to perceived risks many interventions may be proposed with engineering responses and regulation being two of the most common. 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. System safety and reliability engineering System safety and reliability engineering is an engineering discipline. Continuous changes in technology environmental regulation and public safety concerns make the analysis of complex safety-critical systems more and more demanding. 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.) Safety is often seen as one of a group of related disciplines: quality reliability availability maintainability and safety. (Availability is sometimes not mentioned on the principle that it is a simple function of reliability and maintainability.) These issues tend to determine the value of any work and deficits in any of these areas are considered to result in a cost beyond the cost of addressing the area in the first place; good management is then expected to minimize total cost. Safety measures Safety measures are activities and precautions taken to improve safety i.e. reduce risk related to human health. Common safety measures include: Root cause analysis to identify causes of a system failure and correct deficiencies. Visual examination for dangerous situations such as emergency exits blocked because they are being used as storage areas. Visual examination for flaws such as cracks peeling loose connections. Chemical analysis X-ray analysis to see inside a sealed object such as a weld a cement wall or an airplane outer skin. Destructive testing of samples Stress testing subjects a person or product to stresses in excess of those the person or product is designed to handle to determining the "breaking point". Safety margins/Safety factors. For instance a product rated to never be required to handle more than 200 pounds might be designed to fail under at least 400 pounds a safety factor of two. Higher numbers are used in more sensitive applications such as medical or transit safety. Implementation of standard protocols and procedures so that activities are conducted in a known way. Training of employees vendors product users Instruction manuals explaining how to use a product or perform an activity Instructional videos demonstrating proper use of products Examination of activities by specialists to minimize physical stress or increase productivity Government regulation so suppliers know what standards their product is expected to meet. Industry regulation so suppliers know what level of quality is expected. Industry regulation is often imposed to avoid potential government regulation. Self-imposed regulation of various types. Statements of Ethics by industry organizations or an individual company so its employees know what is expected of them. Drug testing of employees etc. Physical examinations to determine whether a person has a physical condition that would create a problem. Periodic evaluations of employees departments etc. Geological surveys to determine whether land or water sources are polluted how firm the ground is at a potential building site etc. Standards organizations A number of standards organizations exist that promulgate safety standards. These may be voluntary organizations or government agencies. United States American National Standards Institute A major American standards organization is the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). Usually members of a particular industry will voluntarily form a committee to study safety issues and propose standards. Those standards are then recommended to ANSI which reviews and adopts them. Many government regulations require that products sold or used must comply with a particular ANSI standard. Testing laboratories 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. Government agencies Many government agencies set safety standards for matters under their jurisdiction such as: the Food and Drug Administration the Consumer Product Safety Commission the United States Environmental Protection Agency Other countries Standards institutions British Standards Institution Canadian Standards Association Deutsches Institut fr Normung International Organization for Standardization Testing Laboratories 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. See also Accident Aircraft Air safety Accidents and incidents in aviation List of aircraft accidents Aisles: Safety and regulatory considerations Arc Flash Safety in Australia Automobile Car accident Automobile safety Traffic safety Bicycle Bicycle safety Boat Boat safety Certified safety professional Child Child safety seat Toy safety Poison control 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 Fail-safe Fail-secure Poka-yoke Software System Safety Safety statement Security Seismic performance Sports injury safety Workplace safety Criticality accident Material safety data sheet Occupational safety and health Personal protective equipment Work accident v d eTechnology (outline) Applied science Archaeology  Artificial intelligence  Ceramic  Computing  Cryogenics  Electronics  Energy  Energy storage  Engineering geology  Engineering physics  Environmental engineering science  Environmental technology  Fisheries science  Hydraulics  Management  Materials science  Microtechnology  Nanotechnology  Nuclear technology  Particle physics  Technician  Technologist  Zoography Information Graphics  Information and communication technologies  Information technology  Music technology  Speech recognition  Systematics  Visual technology Industry Building officials  Business informatics  Construction  Financial  Fishing  Industrial technology  Machinery  Manufacturing  Mining  Textile Military Ammunition  Army engineering maintenance  Bombs  Military communications  Military engineering  Military technology Domestic Domestic appliances  Domestic technology  Educational technology  Food technology Engineering Aerospace  Agricultural  Architectural  Audio  Biochemical  Biological  Broadcast  Chemical  Civil  Computer  Construction  Control  Electrical  Electronic  Enterprise  Entertainment  Environmental  Food  Genetic  Industrial  Mechanical  Mechatronics  Metallurgy  Mining  Network  Nuclear  Offshore  Ontology  Optical  Petroleum  Protein   Radio Frequency  Software  Structural  Systems  Telecommunications Health / safety Bioinformatics  Biomechatronics  Biomedical  Biotechnology  Cheminformatics  Fire protection  Healthcare science  Medical technology  Nutrition  Pharmacology  Safety  Sanitary  Tissue Transport Aerospace  Aerospace engineering  Automotive  Motor vehicles  Naval architecture  Space technology  Traffic  Transport External links http://www.ihasco.co.uk www.SafetyDo.com is Online Safety Digest Safety Australia Safety.com is a free Web 2.0 Community for Safety Citizens: Professionals and Laypersons