Litigious Society

BBC Radio 4 Today this morning, interviewing a head teacher and a local authority administrator about boring “safe” school playgrounds with no chance of injury – hit all key points. Individually all three in the studio arrived at same “some level of risk is a good thing” conclusion and noticed they’d agreed, but all said such a decision would not get made by any committee with coroporate responsibility for kids at school – “fear” of litigation, rather than litigation is the rationale, but this is identical to thread (2) Rationalisation based on cultural pressure in “organised” decision making. John Humphries, bless him, even suggested sueing a local authority for providing playground facilities for a child NOT getting exposure to risk, and therefore not learning / preparing for life adequately. Spot on. (Also tied in with the general issue of “people” in general not comfortable with the idea of “acceptable risk” – in fact it illustrates precisely the opposite, specifically that thoughtful individuals are comfortable – it’s organised decision making that’s not.)

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