When I was a boy, there were no seat belts in cars and no requirements for children to be strapped in specialised seats suitable to their size and weight. The design of cars showed little interest in passenger safety; as for MOTs, who was checking that your brakes were working satisfactorily!

I remember being involved in a multi car shunt on the M6 near Birmingham when my daughter Emma, then a baby in carry cot, was lying unsecured along the back seat of our Morris Minor Traveller. Thank goodness they were sturdy cars.  Cars both in front and behind were seriously damaged but we merely had a chip out of the wood panel at the rear.

None of us were injured but you see my point about what risks we took without thought in those days.

The position was even worse when I went out to Indonesia on Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO). I travelled long distances on buses held together by iron bars welded at a height, nicely designed to collide with heads at the time of any accident.  As buses frequently slid off poorly metalled roads, road deaths were common and part of life’s rich pattern.   

The fact that travelling was dangerous did not stop people balancing on the roof of these fragile swaying vehicles for long distances, clutching onto to treasured possessions and goods and animals destined for market.

I am sure we are all grateful for the changes which have made travelling on our roads so much safer. Why take risks when simple precautions can substantially reduce the likelihood of serious injury or death? I suspect as Indonesia’s wealth has increased, its risk appetite has likewise reduced.

Sometimes risk isn’t that easy to manage and it’s a matter of personal choice. Why go and step into the rim of the most active volcano in New Zealand? And yet many thousands have done so and enjoyed the experience.

Indeed, one of the suspected casualties is a guide who has made the trip to the Island hundreds of time without harm. Are visits to White Island to be banned? Or is the risk, which has always been present, worth taking for the interest and pleasure that visiting such places brings?

Who is to answer that question, particularly at a time of bereavement and loss!

What about the release of potential criminals from prison?  Despite our best assessment of the risk that they pose to society, some of them when released, will go on to pose a threat as recent events have clearly shown; and yet, one of the people who risked his own life to save others on London Bridge has now been revealed as a person who himself had recently been released from prison having first been convicted of murder.

The politicians were quick to jump in with new draconian measures; yet part of the judgement, is giving people a proper second chance to live as good citizens back in the community. However, it would be wrong to conclude that the risks in this case could not have been better managed.

In our business we are re-examining the risks we face as a business.

One of the most recent has been caused by an incident in our reception when threats of violence and intimidation were made by an ex-client to our front of house staff.  It was an unpleasant incident which caused us to call in the police. 

We are now looking at how our relationships with some of our more challenging clients could be better managed. We deal with some of the most disadvantaged people in our community and these kind of problems naturally arise out of what we do. 

We are happy to take some risk, but not to the extent of endangering or causing upset to our Welcome team who do such a wonderful job in making our clients welcome and at ease when they come to see us. 

So how we can deal with these issues better and manage the risk?  Turning up to work is not a choice and ensuring we care for everyone who works for us is quite rightly at the top of our risk agenda.