Safety rules o.k.?

The paper considers the basis for the development and use of safety rules imposed by a company or national organisation. It starts from a consideration of individual behaviour and error in terms of cognitive psychological theory. This postulates that behaviour is governed by individual “production rules”. Imposed safety rules are only needed where individuals' own rules are not sufficient to prevent accidents. From a classification of error types it is possible to derive a classification of types of safety rules and to speculate both upon the characteristics which each type needs to have and on how and where they need to be developed and applied. The paper is illustrated by examples from a number of activities at individual, company and national level.