Compare inherent safety and protective safeguards in reducing risks.

• A. Inherent safety reduces hazards at design stage; protective safeguards are engineered or administrative controls used to prevent or mitigate hazards.
• B. Inherent safety is primarily about PPE.
• C. Protective safeguards create hazards.
• D. Inherent safety applies only after a hazard occurs.

Answer: (A)

Inherent safety targets hazards at the design stage by eliminating, reducing, or isolating the hazard so it’s not created in the first place. Protective safeguards are the additional controls put in place to prevent or lessen risk when some hazard remains or cannot be fully removed. These safeguards are typically engineered controls (containment, interlocks, ventilation) or administrative controls (procedures, training, safe work practices), and they can include PPE as a last line of defense. The correct statement aligns with this view by describing inherent safety as reducing hazards at design and protective safeguards as engineered or administrative controls used to prevent or mitigate hazards.

The idea that inherent safety is mainly about PPE is incorrect because PPE is a protective safeguard, not a design approach to remove hazards. Protective safeguards don’t create hazards; they are meant to reduce risk. And inherent safety applying only after a hazard occurs is opposite to its preventive aim, which is to remove or minimize hazards during design and planning.