Jaws. What a classic. Seen by all, feared by all, remembered by all. The classic battle between man and beast. It’s also the classic battle between man and his own disbeliefs, regardless of how much evidence is at hand. Rewind to 1975. You are young and glued to the screen –a real screen that is, not your personal 45 inch flat HD TV. You are also wearing colorful bell bottom pants, which could be more frightening than the movie.). Around you are people all watching the same movie; you don’t know them, but that was the way it was in ’75. Strangers entered the same large room and watched movies together. Sometimes they even watched movies from inside their cars (but that’s a topic for a future blog.)
The action: Nighttime, a lonely swimmer enters the water, only to be attacked, by you know who. Faced with the horrifying results, the incident is dismissed as a “boating accident”. Do the islanders get the message and act to prevent another death? Nope, (if they would have, this could have been a very short and uninteresting documentary) lured by the coming summer business, mayor et el refuse to close the beach. A second attack does not wait for an invitation, and you know who gets to have his human breakfast.
A local fisherman, Quint, names a high price for riding the island from the threat – but again, no one is willing to pay the price, or deal with the now very obvious problem. An expert arrives at the island (young Richard Dreyfuss) and after segmenting the inside of an innocent tiger shark caught by over enthusiastic fisherman, proves to the locals that while they have caught one of the “usual suspects” – it is not at fault. Blame is elsewhere.
Oh, and then, the best line ever spoken on the silver screen. Better than “Bring in the usual suspects”, better then “May the force be with you”, better then “Frankly my dear I don’t...” my all time favorite: “This was no boating accident!”
Somehow, every time I enter another fleet that is yet to implement an effective driver safety management program, the scene with old Quint, jumps into mind. Actually the whole story board jumps into mind. It’s like watching Jaws over and over again for free. Fleet operators and managers are aware of risks. But all too often, time, budget and internal red tape blind their eyes, just like the coming tourists blinded our poor old mayor in the movie. All too often, instead of spending the time and finding the real killer, more “swimmers” are thrown into the water to feed the hungry beast.
“This was a boating accident” is the equivalent of the all too familiar “this is how I found the car (when I returned from shopping)” and every fleet manager will know what I am talking about. The fact that drivers feel free to come up with such nonsense has to do with the environment in which they live and operate. In a town where the mayor would rather have bathers risk themselves than deal with the real problem, let’s not be surprised that bathers are eaten alive in the shallow water.
This was no boating accident, and that smashed piece of metal in the parking lot was not a car accident. Crash is the term used by the experts, and for a good reason. An accident, by default, could not have been prevented. And I hope that by now all of us know that all but the most bizarre car crashes, can be prevented. So, this was no boating accident. And that my friends, was no car accident. It was a crash.
Ready to be your own island hero? Eager to receive the Oscar for safety? Well, it can be done! And you don’t even have to leave the shore, and wet your feet in order to kill the beast. As the format of world blogs demand, I thank you for making it all the way to the end of this piece, and I will reward you with five easy steps that should turn you into a local legend:
1. Be a hero. Select a good and effective fleet safety management solution; search the market, there are good solutions out there. All hero’s start acting on their own.
2. Be a leader. Find the right people in your company and get them on the same page. Change can be made. Lives can be saved. Operating costs will go down. The marketing people will jump up and down with joy as you feed them the good news about how safe and environmentally friendly your company is. Who should you focus on? Health and Safety manager, Procurement manager, HR, Finances, Safety VP’s, CEO…
3. Be an Oscar winner. Write the full script. Don’t just walk in there with an interesting story to tell. Build a plan and (planning is the key to genius) make sure you can make an effective case. Ask and answer the right questions. What is our risk today? How much are we losing? Whatwhat is our potential liability? What solutions are out there? How much do they cost? How and how much risk will they reduce?
4. Be a believer. Know this, to get an entire island of bathers out of the water during the height of the summer season is almost as hard as… well, getting people to drive safely. But that only means that once you get it done, you are an exceptional, one of a kind, hero. So don’t lose faith, with the right solution at hand you will not only get them out of the water, you will also kill the beast, and teach the entire island how to swim safely.
5. Be a farmer. A farmer? Yes sir! You know. The guy that wakes up early and gets the job done. Or a fisherman, the kind that catches sharks and ends up being the local hero.
Have any better ideas of how to catch a shark? Or prevent an accident? Write to me, I just love fishing stories,
Safe Sailing, it’s worth it,
Hod Fleishman
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