Urban safety is a set of factors: social, economic, ecological, as well as urban and architectural, which create a favorable and comfortable place of existence. "People don't die because of an earthquake. People die because of house collapses. Architects are responsible for man-made disasters that follow earthquakes," Shigeru Ban, a member of the international initiative "New European Bauhaus", believes that the connection between architecture and security is quite obvious. But it is far from obvious to everyone.
Any of us can talk a lot about how exactly he understands security, but even on practical issues (to build or tear down a fence, to install video surveillance cameras or not) people cannot agree. Politicians often backfire by implementing measures that are literally meant to increase security, such as fences, video surveillance, and increasing the number of police officers on the streets.
People perceive all these stop signs painfully: they begin to feel that the environment is at least unhealthy, and at most aggressive, dangerous and toxic. And they fall into depression.
Shibuya Crossing in Tokyo is the busiest pedestrian crossing in the world. Photo: © Sean Pavone
The All-Ukrainian Forum "Ukraine 30. A Safe Community", held in Kyiv at the beginning of November, indirectly confirmed that the connection between urban planning and architecture and security is still in the blind spot of the state vision. Security issues are still the responsibility of law enforcement agencies. Parallels with urban planning were drawn only in two performances.
At first, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, the deputy head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, reported on plans to force the "Major Construction" program and to start a large-scale reconstruction of regional hospitals and the construction of helipads, as well as urban parks, outdoor workouts and new safe parks in 2022. to reduce the burden on the health care system by improving the health of Ukrainians. Does it concern the safety of the urban environment? Definitely.
Then, as part of the "infrastructure" panel at the forum, the Swedish concept of Vision Zero was mentioned. Back in the 90s, Sweden declared a "zero tolerance principle" for road deaths. The authors of the concept believe that road accidents are an inevitable cost of motoring. This is the result of errors in the design of the road infrastructure.
Speakers of the All-Ukrainian Forum believe that it is possible to make city streets safe by limiting the speed of cars to 30 km/h, installing thousands of video recording cameras, increasing fines and expanding the powers of the police. Not a single word about the design itself.
Ukraine loses more than 3 human lives in road accidents per year, and more than a million die worldwide. Restrictive measures for drivers are not exhaustive, and the international organization WRI Ross Center for Sustainable Cities suggests starting with reforms in urban planning.
6 safety principles from Cities Safer by Design
To implement these recommendations, designers will need to work with data sets and digital models. At the same time, the model should not be limited to one street — it should cover a large part of the territory in order to understand how pedestrian and traffic flows are formed.
- Favor design, building and development plans that reduce the need for transportation. Develop mixed-use zoning, design blocks of small size, with active basements and within walking distance of commercial and public facilities. The fewer trips, the fewer road accidents.
- Integrate into the road infrastructure elements that force you to reduce speed: lying police officers, chicanes, roundabouts, safety islands.
- Reconstruct highway corridors to create the safest possible conditions for all road users by reducing the distances between crossings, increasing time intervals for pedestrians to cross the street, and improving visibility at crossings and turns. Consistent design should create a predictable environment in which vulnerable users (pedestrians) are prioritized.
- Bicycle infrastructure should be connected in a continuous network that does not create conflicts between cyclists, motorists and pedestrians.
- Sidewalks, especially in front of public buildings, should be wide to facilitate access to parks, squares, schools, and other key public spaces. Make these places attractive for pedestrians, thereby increasing the demand for the objects themselves.
- Access and transit transitions between stations and public transport stops should be inclusive and free of any physical barriers.
Jeff Speck, in his bestseller for urbanists "Rules of the Pedestrian City", has a controversial thesis that it is not necessary to broadcast to the public information about the risks that lie in wait for cyclists and to emphasize the need to wear protective ammunition.
“If you care about your safety, never ask someone else to wear a helmet as it makes cycling more dangerous. Helmet laws discourage cycling, and the fewer cyclists, the higher the risk.”
Here, Speck puts the public good above the personal safety of specific people, preferring long-term actions. At the same time, the urbanist gives many invaluable recommendations for planners and warns of more serious mistakes: "A six-lane road with unprotected bike lanes is not a 'full-fledged' street, as officials of the Department of Transport would say, but murder."
Photo: Yeshi Kangrang / Unsplash
Shared roads, where lanes are equally reserved for motorists and cyclists, are dangerous." But in Kyiv, city planners mostly follow this path: on highways, a bicycle lane is marked with markings, and in the center of the city they put signs about the shared use of roads.
The same Swedish Vision Zero program, on which Ukraine intends to focus, contains the following thesis: any person can make mistakes, and the infrastructure should contain all possible restrictions - a kind of preventive "fool protection". But it is unlikely that the architects, and even the townspeople themselves, will agree to turn the urban environment into a playpen for babies, and the state's hyperopia will be rejected with indignation. The topic of security is full of paradoxes.
Stop signs and safety markers
"For me, human safety in architecture is primarily about accessibility. Accessibility is not only an implementation of DBN, but an important value, explains architect Hanna Kyriy. — Accessibility is the absence of fences, fences, barriers, the absence of buildings and spaces with limited access. When we design public buildings, we envision them to be as open as possible for everyone to use.
Take, for example, school. It should become a public center, and its premises and grounds should be used by everyone. Instead, the customer often wants to put up a high fence, close all the doors of the school, make limited access, because this is how they understand safety, because in their understanding people will want to break everything, damage and drink in playgrounds. And this applies not only to schools.
In general, I often encounter the fact that the customer seems to want to make a beautiful, open urban space, but at the same time thinks of the users of this space as vandals who will break everything. But it doesn't work like that. We should focus on the best qualities in a person. We either respect a person and create the best space for their happiness, or we don't."
Anna Kyriy, architect, deputy head of the Architectural Chamber of the National Union of Architects of Ukraine, founder of Anna Kyriy Architectural Design Group LLC
In the spring of 2021, the Ministry of Regions (Ministry of Development of Communities and Territories of Ukraine) presented the National Strategy for the Creation of a Barrier-Free Space. Developers recognize that today most buildings, structures and objects of public space are not inclusive, and there is no mechanism for monitoring compliance with state building regulations.
And this despite the fact that the norms of inclusivity are prescribed in six Ukrainian DBN and four DSTU. According to analysts, the irregularity of regulations is the root cause of the fact that designers often do not follow the rules, especially since the requirements may differ in different documents.
The company Big City Lab together with the Ministry of Development of Communities and Territories of Ukraine and the public organization "Bezbarniernost" analyzed Ukrainian courtyards, streets and approaches to buildings, identifying the main problems. Now the Ministry of Regions together with the Ukrainian Zonal Research and Design Institute for Civil Engineering is developing the "Album of technical barrier-free solutions", which will combine all modern examples and become the most convenient guide for designers.
Illustration from the report "Study on the accessibility of urban spaces". The report is part of the research phase of the Without Barriers initiative. Image source: © BigCityLab
Awareness is important in any reforms. It would be too simple a solution to proclaim: "Let's give up fences!" For example, the non-traumatic fencing of green, play and sports areas is provided for by the norms of landscaping, since many children, in particular children with autism, have a reduced sense of danger and can run out onto the road.
"We have to focus on the best qualities in a person. We either respect a person and create the best space for their happiness, or we don't."
It cannot be assumed a priori that empathy is not available to politicians and officials. Some simply did not think about the fact that going down the underpass, built specifically for safety reasons, becomes such a painful ordeal for women with wheelchairs or for the elderly that they are more likely to give up the walk. Barrier-free guides are designed to fill these gaps in knowledge.
Overpopulation as a stress factor
Psychologist Natalia Nedilko believes that the overpopulation of the Ukrainian capital and the chaotic, visually overloaded environment make it subjectively perceived as aggressive and dangerous, which plunges a person into permanent stress.
"The higher the overpopulation at the level of a neighborhood, an anthill, a subway car, the less time you are ready to withstand this load. Our streets are a visually cluttered space: advertisements, signs, cars not only on the road, but also on the sidewalks; something hums, beeps, flashes - and all this is distracting.
A passer-by in Kyiv at rush hour is like a player in a computer shooter: he cannot afford to relax even for a second. The more saturated the surrounding space, the more difficult it is to control. A person is exhausted from constant control and patrolling," explains the psychologist.
Natalia Nedilko, psychologist
Kyiv with an average population density of 4,5 thousand people per square meter. km cannot be called an overpopulated or even a dense city by world or European standards. In the capital of the Philippines, Manila, for example, the density is 10 times higher — 41 people per square meter. km, in Paris - 20,7. Such numbers are often heard during discussions by the capital authorities and developers about the feasibility of building a new housing estate.
But, firstly, Kyiv with its complex topography is built unevenly, and secondly, the exact number of the population, taking into account the unabated flow of workers from the regions and pendulum migration from satellite cities, remains uncalculated. And thirdly, Ukrainian DBNs do not exclude "Manila density" in residential neighborhoods.
Photo: Asya Tes / Unsplash
According to the rule of DBN B. 2.2–12:2018 "Planning and development of territories", which came into force in September 2018, the population density of microdistricts should be within the range of 150–450 people per hectare, but in large cities it is permissible to exceed this norm at most by 20% — that is, up to 540 people per hectare. Previously, DBN did not limit the density, but only recommended it.
In 2018, Lev Partskhaladze, who at that time held the post of Deputy Minister of Regional Development, Construction and Housing, admitted that before the introduction of restrictive norms, developers were able to exceed the recommended limits: "Whoever wanted to, justified such a need. As a result, in some areas of our cities, the population density reached 2000 people/hectare."
"The higher the overpopulation at the level of a neighborhood, an anthill, a subway car, the less time you are ready to withstand this load"
If we assume that the deputy minister, who is an experienced developer himself, did not exaggerate anything, and translate the Kyiv figures into the internationally accepted measurement of thousands per square kilometer, then it turns out that in some districts of Kyiv the population density reaches 200 per square kilometer. km
It is logical that every person tries to avoid stress and find a shelter in which he can relax, put control on pause. Most often, such a shelter is an apartment - a place where a person sleeps and where it was possible to create a conditional safety zone.
The fence as an archetypal inevitability?
Back in 1975, geographer Jay Appleton published the study "Experience of Landscape", in which he formulated the theory of "storage perspective". Drawing on his own observations of animals on the one hand, and on psychology on the other, Appleton argues that humans prefer to explore the environment while in a sheltered location.
In terms of architecture, this means that people instinctively avoid open spaces and feel comfortable in a room protected by walls, but with the possibility of a maximum view. American architect Grant Hildebrand cites Wright's "Waterfall House" as an example: "We are invited to taste danger from a safe haven."
Photo: aolegov / Unsplash
Not only walls, but also fences belong to the archetypal (and archaic, according to many architects and designers) security elements. Despite the global trend towards openness (read more in the article "Post-privacy and uber-transparency. Trends that changed modern architecture" in the 2nd volume of PRAGMATIKA.MEDIA), the need of Ukrainians for fences seems to be only growing in recent years. This demonstrates the increase in the number of fenced housing complexes, which marketers justify by the high demand for space closed from outsiders.
"Safety is not only the inviolability of the physical body, but also personal boundaries. A person extrapolates himself to what is related to himself, for example: your children are a part of you; your cat, dog is a part of you; the flowers you planted in the garden flowerbed are also a part of you. If someone came and trampled the plants, this is already a story about encroachment on personal boundaries. In order to feel safe, it is important for us to control the conditional perimeter," is how psychologist Nataliya Nedilko explains the Ukrainians' need for fences.
Despite the instinctive desire of people to fence and hide, architects are almost unanimous in their desire to reduce the number of fences to nothing
If the city space is filled with new houses not according to a carefully thought-out plan, but chaotically, according to the principle of "building where there is a plot", then often the new house is integrated into a disordered environment - next to abandoned industrial zones, ruins, garages. And even if the environment is prosperous and formed, and the old residents are not happy with the new settlements and were against the construction, then a confrontation immediately arises between people. That is why the newly settled are fenced off, trying to create a controlled space.
However, according to Natalia Nedilko, the construction of new buildings not in the dense center, but on the outskirts, does not change the situation too much: "If it is a conditional residential complex on the edge of the city, where a field and a forest begin, then, on the one hand, there is less stress in it, less people, but on the other hand, rudimentary fears of the wild field and the wild forest, from which monsters can emerge, are revealed here. Citizens are a group of people who agreed among themselves, defined general rules, and the rest around are strangers. But today the cities have grown so much that we are all strangers to each other. And only a small community can be its own, especially if it is closed. If it's open, it's easy for strangers to get in there, and it takes time and effort to control it again."
What is the fundamental difference between Ukrainian townspeople and Europeans, for whom openness, barrier-free urban planning, in particular the rejection of fences, fences and even window curtains, is the norm?
"In Europe, it's a matter of a lower level of public anxiety. There, people can afford to expand the space that they consider their own and feel comfortable in it, to the boundaries of the district and even the city in general. I would not directly relate it to the actual level of crime, but definitely to the feeling of security. Europeans proceed from the following principle: "all people are positive", but our society is characterized by the attitude "I don't know how the other person is". The level of mutual mistrust is very high," explains the psychologist.
Police-ordered fencing around the Capitol in Washington, D.C., following the January 6, 2021, attack by Trump supporters. The installation of the fence caused outrage among Americans, and on July 9, 2021, after a debate, the fence was dismantled. Photo: Bill O'Leary / The Washington Post
A landscape can be disturbing, depressing, or it can relax or energize us. To make the architecture as friendly as possible, it is hardly enough to literally follow DBN. It is necessary to act in advance of regulations, integrate elements of universal design, include more subtle settings, focus on the global agenda and mix all current requirements for spaces.
For example, not only clear stop signs or darkness provoke a sense of danger. Often people feel existential horror, but do not understand what causes it. For example, "noon terror", when in the middle of a carefree sunny day, a person suddenly feels an irrational, but very strong feeling of anxiety. This can happen both in a rural environment and in an urban one. When the sun is at its zenith, the shadows become shorter and eventually disappear.
The cityscape seems to turn into a two-dimensional drawing, and the absence of people or animals in motion makes it even more frightening. An empty central city square in a sweltering heat can truly seem like the most dangerous place on the planet, where time has stopped on the brink of some kind of disaster. Adding natural elements, creating shady areas where citizens can be even in intense heat, water bodies and fountains not only solves the problem of "heat islands", but also enlivens the flat picture, saving us from unpleasant existential experiences.
Regime or policy of openness?
Despite people's instinctive desire to fence and hide, architects, including Ukrainian ones, are almost unanimous in their desire to reduce the number of fences to zero.
Anna Kyriy considers this the only right way: "As soon as some people start to distance themselves from others, danger arises. Why, walking through the streets of a European city, do you see the windows of apartments on the first floor, the entrance to the apartment just from the street, you even see the interior inside, furniture and personal belongings? People do not hide or defend themselves.
This is a philosophy very close to me. I feel safe walking these streets. And I really don't like visiting friends in some Kyiv residential complex, where you have to go through a passageway or a barrier, enter the code on the door, explain something to the concierge and do a bunch of other strange things to get into the elite space behind the fence. It's definitely not about security for me. But the problem is that someone understands security that way."
The building of the US Embassy in Great Britain, designed by the studio Kieran Timberlake. Photo Source: Times Newspapers Limited
Most often, in the dispute "closed or open residential complex" between the architect and the customer, the developer wins, whose marketers convince that closed areas are an indispensable condition for business and premium real estate. But the developers, whose infofield includes the global trend of accessibility, are increasingly making a compromise, ordering architects to build blocks of flats, where areas remain open to passers-by on the street, and access to inner yards is limited.
The democracy of Western metropolises, where people from the street have access not only to patios, but also the opportunity to enter the building and use the roof gardens and terraces on an equal footing with the residents, is not yet practiced in the Ukrainian capital.
Sometimes the concept of barrier-free is incompatible with the status of the object. Read about the "fence below eye level" concept, which the architects of the UAU collectiv office propose for a prison in Belgium, in the article "View from the side. We discuss Ukrainian problems with architects from Belgium» 36th PRAGMATIKA.MEDIA on p. 94. But in Ukraine, such an approach seems frankly fantastic. For example, the pre-revolutionary building on Velyka Zhytomyrskaya in Kyiv, reconstructed by the architects of the Urban Design studio for the Japanese embassy, was surrounded by a fence at the last stage of construction.
KieranTimberlake Architects designed the US Embassy in the UK "balancing unparalleled security standards with a visual language of openness"
Architect Stanislav Dyomin considers it unethical to comment on the embassy's decision. He himself fully shares the barrier-free trend: "Our common task is to build "bridges, not walls", to create communication between people, not to separate them. The latter is perfectly handled by politicians without the help of architects. Any conventional fence divides people into those who are on one side and those who are on the other, giving birth to segregation sometimes out of nowhere.
The number of fences and closed doors is a very telling indicator of the sense of security and trust in society, as well as the degree of development of its positive horizontal ties. The absence of fences is a sign of a healthy and stable society, a sign of trust in fellow citizens and an indicator of the ability to act together, negotiate, and create common good."
It should be noted that before moving to the reconstructed building, the Embassy of Japan in Ukraine occupied one of the floors of a mixed-use building on Museum Lane, which was not fenced off from the pedestrian area. But two years ago, French diplomats fenced off passers-by with a fence.
Open courtyards of the residential complex 79 & Park, built according to the BIG project in Stockholm. Photo: Iryna Isachenko
And this makes us think about what was the cause: the strengthening of internal rules or the situation on the streets of Kyiv worsened? The German Embassy, located on Bohdan Khmelnytskyi Street, does not try to close itself off from Kyivans or blend in with the landscape. On the contrary, the facade was recently decorated with a temporary bright abstract mural, which shows the sense of security in German diplomats.
The territory of the US Embassy in Ukraine, located in a separate building, was surrounded by a fence from the very beginning, and such security measures are traditional for Americans. That is why the building of the US Embassy in Great Britain, designed by the KieranTimberlake studio and opened in 2017, became a sensation. It is not surrounded by a perimeter fence!
Instead of a fence, a spectacular cube frames public gardens and a pond, which, of course, makes it difficult for potential intruders to access, but does not set off an alarm signal in the subconscious of a person watching from the outside. KieranTimberlake Architects deliberately designed the embassy to "balance unparalleled security standards with a visual language of openness." This modern gesture cost American taxpayers $1 billion.
The project of the new building of the Higher Anti-Corruption Court of Ukraine in Kyiv. Image source: Pinchuk+Architects
But let's return to Ukraine. Here, the American government is not yet ready to represent openness. Perhaps because the Ukrainian state structures themselves do not seek it or seek it not actively enough. Recently, the Pinchuk+Architects architectural bureau won the design competition for the new building of the Higher Anti-Corruption Court of Ukraine. But the architects were able to implement the concept of openness only partially.
"The anti-corruption court is a regime object that is under permanent increased protection. Our mission was to build a new building next to the existing one, combining them into a single system. There is no fence on the side of Peremoha avenue, but there is a deaf fence on the side of the yard.
It was not even possible to make it transparent, although transparency was the main idea of our concept. The ratio of the glazing area to the total area of the facade is 95%. The new block will house the offices of judges and staff. We tried to convey the idea that there is nothing to hide in this building," said Oleksandr Pinchuk, co-founder of Pinchuk+Architects.
Safe city = caring
If the task of the urban environment is the development of human capital, then our common goal is to create a place where human capital is in maximum safety. This idea was central to the speakers of the 4th international conference of the Minsk urban platform "City that cares".
In her bestseller The Death and Life of Great American Cities, American urbanist Jane Jacobs formulated the Eyes on the Street theory, which is based on the assumption that the higher the density, the safer. The more people are outside, the more neighbors control the yard, the less likely someone will dare to show aggression.
The theory of the protected space of the architect and urban planner Oscar Newman is also based on social mutual control and the territorial right of residents to the urban spaces located near their homes.
Domino Park, designed by James Corner Field Operations on the waterfront in New York as the most open and friendly space. Photo: © Barrett Doherty
The assumption "the more eyes, the less violence" sounds logical, but the theory itself does not always work, especially in post-totalitarian societies where there is a high level of mistrust between people. "The basis of the fear of crime is not planning, but social relations. They are not afraid of places, they are afraid of strangers," says Anastasia Krasilnikova, co-founder of the FEM TALKS educational project. She is sure that in Minsk, Moscow, Kyiv, a woman can become a victim of aggression, catcalling, a target of objectification, sexualization, even on a busy street or in the yard of a high-rise building where she lives.
All these are signs of a society that is at a low level of civilization, and not errors of urban planning. Therefore, if the components of the design out fear planning concept (lighting, permeability of spaces) are integrated into the body of cities in the post-Soviet space without taking into account the cultural and social context, then there will be no stunning effect.
If, despite the external aestheticism and cleanliness of the streets, society is aggressive, then such a city can hardly be called safe
Olena Lebedeva, sociologist from Minsk, co-author of the monograph "Friendship of the urban environment. The possibilities of interpretation and measurement, the experience of creation," she is sure: "An ordered city does not always mean safe or comfortable. If, despite the external aestheticism and cleanliness of the streets, the society is aggressive, then such a city can hardly be called safe. It should be understood that safety is not only objective, but also subjective criteria, which are often even more influential."
Indeed, very often residents of a small town with poor ecology, underdeveloped cultural infrastructure, lack of bike lanes and a full set of communal problems consider their housing safe because they are surrounded by familiar people.
And big cities with a lot of strangers and visual triggers throw provincials into a panic. At the same time, closed communities often show intolerance towards strangers, because social inclusion is not only the willingness to help an elderly person cross the road, but also the absence of hostility and aggression towards those whose appearance differs from some conventional "norm".
Barrier-free entrance to Norra Tornen, built in the center of Stockholm according to the OMA project. Photo: Laurian Ghinitoiu / OMA
So can architects and urban designers influence the intangible aspects of care or should they focus on promoting the social aspects? Spanish urbanist Blanca Valdivia from the non-governmental organization Col·lectiu Punt 6 is sure:
"Maybe - and in the most direct way. If we don't arrange public places, people simply won't have a place to meet! But now many cities are developing in the paradigms of capital and patriarchy, which no longer correspond to the principles of sustainability. To satisfy the need for security, planners must sometimes go beyond the logic of capital. And pay attention to vulnerable groups and support grassroots initiatives."
"The highest value of the city is the possibility of communication. If it is artificially complicated, these restrictions cause either aggression or depression."
In particular, in Barcelona, where Ada Colau, who supports a left-wing political ideology, is the mayor for the second consecutive term, city planners practice a comprehensive approach to improving the environment. They implement elements of all classic urban planning concepts: the creation of pedestrian blocks, the construction of both public cultural centers and social ones - the promotion of tolerance and anti-sexism.
Where to start?
Where to start? Tear down the fences or first ensure full safety on the streets? Architect Stanislav Dyomin believes that it is incorrect to formulate the question in this way: "The process should be progressive: as soon as some area has become objectively safer, for example, lighting has been installed or simply the neighbors have agreed on the joint use of the territory, then at least one fence can be removed. And so little by little, all over the city.
The greatest value of the city is the possibility of communication between people. If it is artificially complicated or limited, such restrictions cause either aggression or depression with all the consequences and, accordingly, worsen the life of the townspeople. By the way, quarantine and lockdown are the same "fence", at least their effect is approximately the same. Therefore, in my opinion, everything that breaks communications and creates restrictions, no matter how they are justified, we need to slowly eliminate from our everyday life, our culture."
Stanislav Dyomin, architect
"You must first remove the fences in your head, and only then will they disappear from the streets. Any division of society into "us" and "them" is borders, fences and danger, architect Anna Kyrii believes that work should be started on the root causes of fear. — There are many architectural experiments that show that favelas in the city are a concentration of danger, crime and chaos. Instead, the combination of cheap and expensive housing in one residential complex leads to a significant increase in the level of security and a decrease in crime. That's why we work with consciousness, world perception and outlook."
Psychologist Nataliya Nedelko agrees that reducing basic anxiety is a step-by-step process: "There is such a thing as the zone of immediate development, when you set yourself tasks that are quite realistic to complete. Architects are right that we affect the environment and the environment affects us. But if you live in an overly aggressive environment, you may not survive the fall of borders and fences. But when a large enough community has formed, which is ready to "expand", then the task is already proportionate."
Perhaps there is not much time left for humanity to decide to leave its mental "shelter", to "expand" as much as possible, to scale and extrapolate itself to the level of a city or a planet. Evolutionarily, such a path from the door of a safe apartment will last for decades. Participants of the "New European Bauhaus" initiative believe that planners need to act more decisively.
Bjarke Ingels wrote in his manifesto: "All over the world, our urban streetscapes are designed according to the principle of "back of house, front of house." Far from our urban centers, all this dirt is hidden: landfills, power plants, factories, mines. Out of focus, out of mind. It shouldn't be like that. We need to start thinking about the entire planet, looking at the world as a single object of design. Survival depends on it."
Sometimes the concern for safety is to forget safety.
