In 2013, a UK school teacher was sacked for failing to complete a risk assessment before pruning a bush at her school. If you think that’s ridiculous, then you would also be appalled to learn that the Welsh Ambulance Service refused to take this man’s 95-year-old Aunt to hospital for a basic medical procedure because of the potential health and safety risk posed by the three front steps of her house.
Whether we like it or not, we live in a society that attempts to manage risk, analyze it, reduce it, and ultimately eliminate it. Before 1970, seat belts were an optional upgrade in cars in my home country — Australia. I happen to think seat belts are a good, sensible addition to vehicles, by the way, but these days, a child has to be in a specially fitted — and downright expensive — child restraint until he or she is seven years old. I’m pretty sure at the age of seven, I was riding in the back of a truck — unrestrained, of course.