Grant Piraine
May 1, 2017
Why “Own Your Safety” Is Not a Slogan
Own Your Safety is not a catchphrase or a marketing statement. It is a responsibility model.
In ground disturbance work, safety is often framed as something provided by others: a locate request is submitted, markings appear on the ground, procedures are followed, and the assumption is that risk has been managed. Yet incidents continue to occur at unacceptable rates, even on projects where locates were properly requested and completed.
True safety begins when individuals and organizations accept that responsibility cannot be outsourced. Systems can support safe work, but they cannot replace judgment, understanding, and informed decision making.
Knowing What’s Below Is the First Safety Decision
Before any ground disturbance begins, the most important decision has already been made: whether the person performing the work understands what is below ground and the limitations of the information available to them.
Knowing before you dig is not about paperwork or compliance. It is about comprehension. It requires understanding how buried facilities are installed, how they are located, where uncertainty exists, and what actions are required when information is incomplete or unclear.
When this understanding is missing, workers are left relying on assumptions rather than knowledge. That is where risk begins to compound.
Why Compliance Has Not Solved the Problem
In Ontario alone, more than 5,100 reported buried infrastructure damages occurred in 2017, representing a 36 percent increase from the previous year.
More than half of those incidents occurred on projects where locates had already been requested and completed. The economic impact exceeded one billion dollars, but the human risk is far more significant.
These numbers highlight an uncomfortable reality: compliance with locate requirements does not equate to safety. Damage prevention failures are not always the result of missing information. More often, they stem from misunderstanding, overconfidence, and gaps in training and experience.
When Safety Becomes Personal
For many professionals, safety awareness evolves over time. Early in a career, risk is often underestimated and lessons are learned through trial and error. That approach is not only inefficient, it is dangerous.
As experience grows and personal responsibilities increase, the consequences of a single mistake become clearer. Safety is no longer abstract. It becomes about returning home at the end of the day and protecting the people who depend on you. This shift in perspective is often the moment when safety stops being a rule set and becomes a personal obligation.
The Three Knowledge Gaps That Drive Risk
Across the industry, three recurring gaps consistently contribute to buried facility incidents:
Not knowing what is in the ground before work begins
Not understanding the complexity and limitations of the locate process
Not having a strong personal or organizational safety culture
Each of these gaps is rooted in knowledge and awareness, not intent. Addressing them requires more than reminders or rules. It requires structured education and experience-based training.
Safety Culture Is a Learned Skill
A strong safety culture does not emerge organically. It must be taught, reinforced, and supported at every level of an organization.
Policies and procedures specific to ground disturbance near buried facilities are essential, but they are only effective when people understand the reasoning behind them. When incidents occur, proper investigation and reporting are critical, not to assign blame, but to identify learning opportunities and prevent recurrence.
Safety culture starts at the top, but it succeeds only when individuals are equipped with the knowledge and confidence to make safe decisions in the field.
Safety Is Shared, but Ownership Is Individual
Ground disturbance involves many parties: engineers, consultants, utility owners, locators, contractors, and operators. Each plays a role in managing risk. Safety is shared across this network, but ownership ultimately rests with the person performing the work.
Owning your safety means asking the right questions, recognizing uncertainty, and refusing to proceed when information is insufficient. It means understanding that others are counting on you to make informed decisions, not just compliant ones.
Damage prevention improves when safety is treated as a competency to be developed, not a task to be completed.