Sure. Even a history of safety success contributes to this. We haven't had an accident in 3000 days, what was dangerous about this job again? Also what's this stupid policy for anyway, I've never seen anybody even come close to (non-dangerous-sounding fate) while working here.
But probably the policy is in place because it used to happen before the policy was in place. It's just not obvious to people who have never seen the consequences before.
Complacency kills! It's why it's usually the old farmers that die in stupid ways.
I'm also reminded of the Yale machine shop safety supervisor who died by getting herself wound around a lathe spindle. Working alone, late at night on powerful rotating machinery wearing loose clothing.
>Michele Dufault, a 22-year-old physics and astronomy major from Scituate, Massachusetts, was asphyxiated after her hair caught in a lathe in a Sterling Chemistry Laboratory machine shop, where she was working by herself in violation of the existing safety rules.
Hmmm. I was positive that at the time the report came out, they said that she was actually one of the people assigned to monitor machine shop users for safety issues. Maybe that got confused with her taking the advanced safety classes.
I'm wondering if every generation has to relearn the basics for themselves through experience.
Each generation has to make the same mistakes. Because book learning doesn't seem to do it for some things.