Human error not a safety issue???

Quote from an article about the Maglev crash in Germany this month. "The crash has prompted a closer look at safety, even though the cause was probably human error."

What a strange thing to say. This seems to be the classic where people assume high technology and automation remove the opportunity for error and so human factors are no longer relevant. The reality usually is that error likelihood may be reduced but the potential consequences are higher and the errors are more complex in nature. Therefore, human factors is far more important.

Article here from the Economist on 28 September 2006.

Andy Brazier