5 ms·

The conclusion of the article reminds me of the idea behind blameless postmortems for system outages. Human mistakes are inevitable, and it's our responsibility

by gklitt 9y ago

The conclusion of the article reminds me of the idea behind blameless postmortems for system outages. Human mistakes are inevitable, and it's our responsibility to design resilient systems that acknowledge that simple fact. While software engineering is an immature discipline in many ways, blameless postmortems seem like a counterexample -- they're a well-known best practice in software that don't seem as common in some other fields.

viraptor 9y ago
I think blameless post mortem works where you can take time and improve in the future. A more established process from the 80s coming from Toshiba is 5 whys, which is not exactly blameless (you do end up finding the issue), but the blame is usually on the process that needs fixing. The accident in that case is just the initial step and educating the drivers to notice the cyclist would not end up as the solution. Which I do like: people will keep making mistakes - either stop them or make the mistake obvious before it leads to the accident - punishing that driver may make us feel better but it won't improve the situation.
alphaalpha101 9y ago
Blameless postmortems are good to do at the systemic level, but not a legal one It's ultimately the responsibility of road users (drivers, cyclists, whatever) to keep themselves and others safe.
jdavis703 9y ago
Most vehicle collisions are not blameless though. They are caused by inattentive people; I've almost been hit multiple times by people either on their cell phone, or chatting with a passenger in their vehicle. Other times drivers are purposely driving with a priority on agressivenss over safety. If we ever get to a state of zero traffic fatalities then maybe blameless post-mortems would make sense. But there's too much blatantly bad behavior occuring. It would be as if a pilot crashed buzzing the control tower. Clearly a human operator was being reckless and deserves punishment.
- underwater 9y ago
  If you acknowledge that people are inherently inattentive or malicious then you can design a system that protects people even when someone is to blame.
  - jessaustin 9y ago
    Such a system probably wouldn't include people driving automobiles?

by gklitt 9y ago

viraptor 9y ago

I think blameless post mortem works where you can take time and improve in the future. A more established process from the 80s coming from Toshiba is 5 whys, which is not exactly blameless (you do end up finding the issue), but the blame is usually on the process that needs fixing. The accident in that case is just the initial step and educating the drivers to notice the cyclist would not end up as the solution. Which I do like: people will keep making mistakes - either stop them or make the mistake obvious before it leads to the accident - punishing that driver may make us feel better but it won't improve the situation.

alphaalpha101 9y ago

Blameless postmortems are good to do at the systemic level, but not a legal one It's ultimately the responsibility of road users (drivers, cyclists, whatever) to keep themselves and others safe.

jdavis703 9y ago

Most vehicle collisions are not blameless though. They are caused by inattentive people; I've almost been hit multiple times by people either on their cell phone, or chatting with a passenger in their vehicle. Other times drivers are purposely driving with a priority on agressivenss over safety. If we ever get to a state of zero traffic fatalities then maybe blameless post-mortems would make sense. But there's too much blatantly bad behavior occuring. It would be as if a pilot crashed buzzing the control tower. Clearly a human operator was being reckless and deserves punishment.

underwater 9y ago
If you acknowledge that people are inherently inattentive or malicious then you can design a system that protects people even when someone is to blame.
- jessaustin 9y ago
  Such a system probably wouldn't include people driving automobiles?