One of the more memorable answers came from a former Major League Baseball pitcher. It was raining, and his footing was not good. The umpires seemed determined to let the game go on. He played through without incident, but he didn’t pitch his best because he was compensating for the poor condition of the mound.

Over the last few weeks, the management of the NFL has had two opportunities to act in regard to safety of its employees and of the general public. First, when the collapse of the Metrodome led to scheduling a game on the fozen field of the University of Minnesota, and then two weeks later when blizzard conditions in Philadelphia made travel in the city dangerous.

Stadiums in the NFL come in two versions: covered and not-covered. Those that are not covered have an underground system to keep the turf from freezing, allowing the players some level of certainty that their cleats will work effectively. Frozen turf leads to poor footing. Poor fitting leads to injury. In addition, frozen turf is like concrete, and every tackle will have a much greater impact on the players. Yes, it’s a tough game and they wear personal protective equipment, but that equipment was still designed with turf in mind. The decision: Play the game.

In the case of the snow event, the game was postponed. The reason given was that it was not safe for the fans to travel through the storm to get to the game, and endangering the public would be in no one’s best interest.

The problem with the frozen turf scenario is that there were not a lot of options that would allow the fans of the Minnesota Vikings to attend the game they had paid for.  The University offered the nearest venue with enough seating to serve the fans and to allow the game to be played in a reasonable time. So management had to make a decision with minimal options. In the case of the weather problem in Philadelphia, it was evident that in a couple of days the conditions that caused the problem will not longer impact the opportunity to have the game. In short, it was an easier decision to make.

I’m not judging. I’m sure that the NFL has a robust protocol for decisions like this, including trainers and equipment experts who know the limitations of the equipment.

But what about where you work? Is your management faced with similar tough decisions? Does it look like there is a reasonable consistency to the decisions that impact the safety of the employees?

Turning would be different. You could easily underestimate the position of the car now that you would be sitting closer to the right wheel than the left.  Assuming the position of the brake and gas pedals is switched, you would have to get accustomed to that. And if it was a manual transmission, you would be even more challenged. If you are good at checking over your shoulders, that process would not be as simple as you might think. Blind spots are reversed, and your brain just doesn’t catch up right away.

The biggest adjustment would be if you wanted to pass on a two lane road. There would be no way to asses the dangers of moving into the oncoming lane in the first place.

This is why driving in adverse conditions, like heavy rain, or snow and ice, can be problematic. Not because cars can’t handle them, but because our normal driving leaves us in a state of simplified attentiveness. We have it mastered in most cases, and we think about many things while we are driving. When conditions get bad, we sit up, turn the radio down, and concentrate just a little harder.

Are you concentrating enough on your driving? How much do you rely on the other people sharing the road with you.

If we all turn our attention up just a notch or two, it’s possible we could reduce the total number of accidents on our busy highways.

And yes, I was at a complete stop before I even reached for the phone to take this picture, and no cars were moving at the time. Cars standing still also reduces accidents, but we just can’t get anywhere then!

Thanks, and let’s be careful out there.

Before I moved to the Atlanta area, I connected in ATL dozens of times. You don’t even have to travel to or from the south to still find your way to the Atlanta airport as part of your trip. I met a passenger the other day who started her morning in Jackson, MS and was trying to get to Omaha. While it might seem logical that she was in Atlanta at that point, she got there by way of Memphis, and from Atlanta was headed to Milwaukee. Obviously, this is not the path from her original ticket, but once her first leg of the trip got disrupted it went downhill.

Yesterday I was heading to Milwaukee via commuter plane to catch a flight home. We were a little late pulling away from the gate when the attendant informed us that we still had to go through de-icing, and so some of our connections were in jeopardy. Almost everyone on this flight was connecting to somewhere else, and there was this collective groan that emerged with the announcement. It was a groan of discontent. I heard the person behind me ask his row mate, “Do you think that’s really necessary?”.

It was sort of painful to walk up to the gate in Milwaukee and see the jetway pulled away from my Atlanta-bound flight, but that’s just the way it goes sometimes.

When I buy a ticket, or when my company buys me a ticket, the money spent isn’t just for transportation from point A to point B. I am paying for the gate agents, the airport gate fees, the maintenance of the plane, the luggage handlers, and most importantly, the experienced experts who make the calls regarding the safety of a flight. In a weather situation like yesterday’s, I pay them to make the decision to de-ice, even though it will create scheduling ripples throughout their system. They don’t want to delay flights, but they don’t want disaster either. I sincerely believe that if the people on the plane yesterday could vote on the de-icing process, I would have been on the short end of the vote.

On the other hand, why the airline books tickets with a 25 minute connection, in Wisconsin, in February, is beyond me. The boarding process is underway before you even get there.

Do you have a peeve about safety practices that you believe don’t protect you? Would you want to put plane de-icing up to a vote?  Not me, thanks.

The words rang true for me today: Let’s be careful out there!

I’ve lived in places that routinely get weather like this, but Atlanta gets it so infrequently that people don’t get a chance to develop the skills to drive when conditions are icy. More importantly, we don’t work on the skill of deciding not to drive. I saw several interviews on the news with drivers who thought they could handle it, but they were wrong.

Many smart people of science have made great discoveries about how consistently the world works, and if we take the time to understand the rules they have discovered, we could save ourselves from life-threatening accidents. Because, you see, you can hardly call them accidents when nature is performing as predicted.

1. Gravity works, always. The exact rate of acceleration that the earth’s gravity is responsible for (9.8 meters per second squared) doesn’t matter. What matters is that it is relentless. The farther away you take yourself from a stable, level surface, the greater will be your speed at impact with the next surface between you and the earth. Climbing a ladder without setting it up correctly, or getting on a roof without the right kind of harness or other safety precaution, or just jumping on a trampoline without spotters are all activities that people insist upon as though gravity won’t be a nuisance to them.
2. Machines can multiply forces. Why is this important? Think about your car. If you are old enough to have driven a car that didn’t have power steering, you know that having two hands on the wheel was necessary at all times. Your car wants to travel in a straight line. When you turn the wheel, even a little bit, your front wheels dig into the pavement with tremendous force to move the car into another direction. But power brakes and steering make us feel like those forces are minimal. So when I heard a driver say he though he could handle the icy hill, he was totally neglecting the fact that without the tires biting into the pavement, no steering matters, the car wants to go in a straight line. The center of the car. It may start to fishtail a bit and move sideways, but the center is moving straight, and no amount of steering is going to change how the tires behave on ice.

So that’s it. Ice is not asphalt, and gravity never quits.

Any simple science lessons you have encountered that help you be safer?

Thanks, and let’s be careful out there.

Anna at abdpbt is responsible for the effort to Fight Listless Mondays. Find other list links on her blog. Her lists and the others linked there always give you something to think about, and may even make you smile!

SaferByChoice is all about that idea. That if we equip people to make the best decisions, we will all be safer. As a result, everyone is better off. Employees are not compromised, and the business runs with less interruption.

I am traveling this week, and awoke this morning to see the scene you see with this post. Not the worst snowstorm of all time, and not a bad one by many standards. But the roads were not clear, my rental was a small, rear-wheel drive car, and the news reporters said local police were asking that non-essential travel be delayed.

Less than 10 years ago I would have convinced myself to get out there, clear the snow off the car, and get to the office. Today I thought about it for a bit, then I realized that I had all I needed on my PC, I had a good wireless connection, and I had a phone. That pretty much meant that my travel was non-essential. I had the face-to-face meetings that I came here for scheduled on Tuesday and Thursday, so there was no reason to rush to the local office today.

If there were someone expecting me in the office today, I believe I would have made the same decision. I am obligated to make good decisions for my company. Good business decisions, good quality decisions, good HR decisions, good safety decisions. I probably could handle the risks associated in driving in blowing snow, on roads that are not completely clean, but I don’t have to. Truth is, if I had an accident, I would be saying that I never should have gone out.

So instead, I was more productive than usual today. No travel time, no one stopping by the office to chat. and for an INTP like me, that makes for a great day!

Are you obligated to be safe? Do you compromise that obligation? What are you going to do about it?

Thanks, and let’s be careful out there.