HBSE and risk assessment adventure on a tight-rope

Existing risk assessment starting points are rather nebulous and abstract. While not expressly stated, existing risk assessment processes start with the situation where no safeguards are in place - which is an impossible situation. Models for injury and safety taken from Hazard Based Safety Engineering can be a good starting point for risk assessment. This paper presents alternative definitions of hazard, risk, and safety that are less abstract than those presented in ISO Guide 51. The HBSE models provide a means for establishing probability of injury. The HBSE process is a coherent process for performing risk assessment as well as the next step, establishing safety for each hazard.