By: Gerald J.S. Wilde
Date: 2001-10-09
Why are bankers, adventure tour operators, nuclear scientists, and health professionals
reading a book on traffic safety? When Target Risk was
first published in 1994 it caused a sensation because it turned conventional
ideas on risk management upside down. New Yorker writer Malcolm
Gladwell used its ideas to explain the Challenger space shuttle disaster.
Ski resort managers studied it to help figure out why safety improvements
failed to reduce accident rates. It was purchased by a broad readership ranging
from health professionals and law enforcement officials to financial analysts,
journalists, and safety educators. The book is controversial because it casts
a new light on all the efforts that governments, industry, and law enforcement
officials make to improve safety. It implies a new approach to managing risk,
in ourselves and in others.
The first edition has sold out, but an updated and expanded version, Target Risk 2 , is now available in paperback.
PDE Publications, 2001
255 pages, US$35.95