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Blog Entry 1 of 5 Life and Society Improvement
Blogs about how to improve our life, our society, our cities, and the system that we live within. Ideas on improving life, roadways, traffic conditions, city respeonsibilities, and government systems are all fair game. Hopefully this input will merit consideration, and foster government officials to improve our systems and make life better.

Blog Url: http://denver.yourhub.com/~oriskany

Someone has to be held accountable - or not
Contributed by: Gerry Benner   on 9/15/2007

Remember the old days when something went wrong and the boss looked for someone to blame. The punishment for being in the wrong place at the wrong time was to be fired. In Corporate America we had Dr. W. Edward Deming that helped straighten out management's misconceptions. He helped us realize that usually it's the system that is at fault.

So, when I hear someone say: "someone has to be held accountable," I think: No, it could have just been the system. Recently there was a story of a young car driver who hit and killed a young boy on his bike. Right away, people (maybe it's just the media, or the folks they interview) look to blame and punish someone. Sometimes things just happen; and whether the driver had some fault, or the boy on the bike had some fault, or maybe some parents for not training or watching enough, or maybe the government for not making wider roads so there is more room. Young drivers are definitely better prepared with the hours of both day and night driving to qualify them for their license. Sometimes it's just the systems, and numerous factors that contribute to a death. The real question should be: was it intentional or unintentional?? Should we be putting young drivers in jail just because of an accident where they're in the wrong place at the wrong time?? Lots of unintentional things happen. Accidents happen. Forgetfulness happens. Stupidity happens.

I wish there was an easy way to determine fault, or if a person's actions are intentional or not. It's up to our prosecutors to represent the people and determine if a situation warrants punishment. Now days it seems that there are laws against almost everything (compared to 20 years ago), but are our laws written to take into account faults that are due to the system, or do we attempt to put the full blame on anyone involved, assuming that they intentionally meant to do harm??

I hope we will all remember to look at all of the facts and analyze the situation enough before we look to hold someone accountable. Sometimes things happen. Many factors could have contributed to the situation. And sad results occur despite everyone's normal effort. It's okay. Everyone lived up to their responsibilities, and did not intentionally mean to do harm. Even if someone didn't carry out their responsibility to the fullest, I wouldn't think that they intentionally meant to do harm. Yes, if the young driver, or the boy, or the parent were just paying a bit more attention, then maybe the situation would never have happened. Maybe normal attention wasn't good enough for this situation.

In Corporate America, we have to analyze our outputs and faults in order to understand the contributing factors involved, and then improve the system. I wouldn't expect anything less from those in our state and local government.


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CONTRIBUTOR INFORMATION

Gerry Benner

Thornton , CO

Gerry Benner has posted 5 blog entries and 5 comments since joining on 3/5/2007. Gerry Benner 's average blog rating is 4.33.
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