Everyone uses the word safety, yet nobody agrees on what it means
Safety turns up in laws, standards, manuals and theses, usually on the assumption that its meaning is obvious. It is not. There is no universally accepted definition, and many official documents never state which one they mean. Is safety the absence of risk, or the ability to cope when things go wrong?
The word itself is old. It entered English in the 14th century, travelling through Middle English and Anglo-French from Latin salvus, which meant uninjured or in good health. Since then it has gathered meanings. One dictionary calls it freedom from danger and risk; another stresses being protected from suffering or causing hurt, injury or loss. Scholars have offered many more: the opposite of risk, a state where hazards are controlled, freedom from intolerable risk, or the capacity of people and organisations to handle hazards while still reaching their goals. None is inherently better; each reflects the community that uses it.
One useful approach separates three senses. As an outcome, safety is a record of acceptably few bad events. As a target, it means planning ahead to reduce risk in a changing world. As a process, it means protecting people, surroundings and property now, and limiting the damage when something does go wrong. Another view treats safety as the steady state of a place or organisation doing what it is supposed to do, as defined by codes, designs, plans and policies. Security, by contrast, covers the means of protecting that steady state against threats from inside or out.
Safety is always relative. Removing every risk would be extremely hard and costly, if possible at all, so a situation counts as safe when risks are low and manageable, and calling something safe usually means safe within reasonable limits.
Measures taken for safety can even backfire. Frail older people are sometimes moved into hospitals or nursing homes to protect them from stairs, cooking or falls, yet the move can bring its own dangers, including transfer trauma, delirium, infection, abuse, depression and anxiety.
Source: Safety
