At the risk (yeah, yeah, I know
) of taking this thread off the focus that it should have: the tragic loss of a young child,
I'd like to point out that it seems as though some people are a little unsure of what risk means, and are perhaps confusing it with consequence. This is something I see in my workplace regularly, especially when risk assessments are being completed, ironically.
Risk is a function of two things: consequence and probability or likelihood. Consequence is the effect of something, or what will happen if..... Likelihood is a relative assessment of how likely it is that the consequence will occur. These two functions then produce an overall risk matrix, with a low consequence and low likelihood producing a low risk and a high consequence and high likelihood generating a high risk. Something like this for example:
In most cases, the highest risk of an activity is likely to not be the most severe consequence. Why? Because we generally put in place remedial actions to reduce the likelihood that a high consequence will eventuate.
So, to bring this back on topic, yes, I get that having children in dragsters has the potential for a high consequence outcome, so the governing body should have had in place a formal risk assessment process to manage the requirements that would eventually see a young person drive one of these dragsters alone. There must have been control measures put in place to reduced the likelihood of such a consequence occurring.
Now I'm not suggesting for a minute that any action be taken to stop such young people from driving these dragsters, as some may have thought, but I do wonder what control measures were in place to reduce the risk. Perhaps some of those control measures were not sufficient, in this particular case, to prevent the outcome. And perhaps nothing needs to change. Perhaps the events are so unlikely to occur again that further control measures aren't justified.
My point is that it would be interesting to see what the risk assessment considered to be the greatest risk to these young drivers, what control measures were put in place, and following a suitable investigation, whether further control measures are required.