United Kingdom: the threshold of safety culture; this is well known even in the tales

This post is also available in: Spanish

My latest post in the PI&ORP site (Polytechnic University of Catalonia) is titled “Un siglo de cultura preventiva” (One century of safety culture) and is all about a well established concept for decades: safety culture.

La_caída_de_los_gigantes

The post at PI&ORP is inspired in a book that is being absorbing: “Fall of giants” (Ken Follett, 2010), set in the first quarter of the 20th century and a part of the story developed in the United Kingdom.

In that place at that time several factors, which are basic to understand the concept of safety culture as today is known, coincided and are the focus in the Follett´s book:

  • mining industry;
  • professional development of young workers;
  • business organization.

Safety culture -as the rest of cultural, economic, social, religion… factors- was exported to the English-speaking countries which, since then, maintained and developed the safety culture in a number of fields such as work, industry, road safety, educational or civil protection.

This has been the case until the present time in which, when it comes to safety applied to many fields, the gold-standards come from the United States, Australia, Canada, United Kingdom,…

The English-speaking countries remain as the worldwide reference and the rightful owners of safety culture, and they know it.

And for that reason, it is not a surprise to find it even in the stories of an English writer of great books like Ken Follett.

Bibliography:
FOLLETT, KEN. 2010. La caída de los gigantes. Círculo de Lectores.
MAIRAL, DAVID. 2 jan 2014. Un siglo de cultura preventiva. PREVENCIÓN INTEGRAL. http://www.prevencionintegral.com/comunidad/blog/aragon-valley/2015/01/02/siglo-cultura-preventiva. Consulted 2 jan 2014.