Risk Management & Assessment Flashcards

A district stops transporting students on a dangerous unpaved road and moves the stop to a paved highway intersection. Which risk-treatment strategy is this?

Answer: Risk avoidance

Eliminating exposure to a hazard entirely by no longer performing the risky activity is risk avoidance.

A transportation department requires its contracted bus company to carry liability insurance naming the district as an additional insured. This is an example of:

Answer: Risk transfer

Contractual insurance and indemnification requirements shift the financial consequences of loss to another party, which is risk transfer.

In a basic risk matrix, which two factors are combined to rank a hazard's overall risk level?

Answer: Likelihood and severity

Risk matrices rate hazards by how probable an event is and how serious its consequences would be.

After a bus backs into a parked car in the depot, an accident review committee is asked to decide whether the crash was 'preventable.' What standard is typically applied?

Answer: Whether the driver did everything reasonably possible to avoid the crash

Preventability asks whether the driver failed to do everything reasonable to prevent the crash, regardless of legal fault or citations.

A supervisor notices that most minor collisions in the fleet occur while buses are backing. Which control is the MOST effective first step to reduce this risk?

Answer: Redesign routes and stops to minimize or eliminate backing

Engineering the hazard out of operations by minimizing backing ranks above warnings and administrative reminders in the hierarchy of controls.

Which situation BEST illustrates risk retention?

Answer: Choosing to pay small fender-bender repairs out of the operating budget instead of filing claims

Knowingly absorbing small, predictable losses internally is risk retention.

Why should near-miss incidents be documented even when no injury or damage occurs?

Answer: They reveal hazards and patterns before a serious loss occurs

Near-misses are leading indicators that allow hazards to be corrected before they produce actual injuries or damage.