ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the use of rules and procedures for those working in the primary processes of hazardous technologies, the machine operators, fitters, pilots, surgeons, nurses and anaesthetists. It explores the support for the dichotomy in the literature on safety rules and their management, and assess whether one can draw the positive aspects from both models and define generic best practice on the management of safety rules and procedures. Safety rules and procedures are presented in many publications on safety management as one of the cornerstones of the risk control system, the translation into specific detail of the top management commitment set out in the safety policy. Amalberti, in a paper discussing technologies that are already ultra-safe, warns of the danger of increasing regulations and procedures in them. More rules simply mean more violations and a suppression of creativity to be able to operate outside the boundary of the envelope defined by safety procedures.
