Act of God or controllable event?
The incident described is not in any way an "act of God." This is because all the mistakes made were all avoidable in one way or the other. The first mistake that resulted in all these messes was that the driver was not specific enough when talking to the fuel attendant about what type of fuel he wanted. This is so since the attendant might have had little knowledge of the culture in New Jersey where it is mandatory that an attendant pumps the fuel and are well versed in the type of fuel to pump to their clients. Therefore, the attendant who pumped the vehicle might have assumed the driver wanted gasoline since he did not specify what type of fuel he wanted. It is also possible that the attendant might have been a new trainee with the station and, therefore, was not well versed in the types of fuel offered at the station, and the fuel caps might also have not been clearly labelled. Perhaps if the company had a sticker on the fuel cap that read the name of the type of fuel, the mistake could have been avoided. Therefore, in this case, it is only right to say that human error is to blame, not God.
Categories of risks encountered
There are two main general categories of risk encountered in this case. The first risk an operational risk. Operational risks often arise from breakdowns in internal procedures, people and systems; something that is quite prevalent in an enterprise such as this (Frame, 2003). This risk is encountered when the bus is fuelled with gasoline instead of diesel. This is the improper management of the truck. Furthermore, less precaution is taken into account when towing away the bus and thus causing it more damage. These mishandling of the bus results in a breakdown of the bus. And thus, an operational risk is encountered. Secondly, the project risk which widely takes into account Murphy's Law was involved (Frame, 2003). A single misfortune resulted in numerous other misfortunes- use of the wrong fuel resulted in a disaster. Luckily, no tourist was hurt. There was just a delay in transporting the tourists by two hours.
These two risks are avoidable if the company plans properly, and caution is taken both by the workers and the management when handling the organization's infrastructure. With proper handling of vehicles and the other organizational properties, these risks can be mitigated.
How to conduct an ex post facto risk assessment
Given the time and amount of money this incident has caused the organization; an ex-post risk assessment would be quite necessary to avoid reoccurrence of the same in the future. In carrying out the assessment, in it is advisable that the organization hire a third party to do it so as to get the most response from the local workers of the organization and the other parties involved (Stanton & Webster, 2014). A third party would give an unbiased assessment report of the incidence and responses from those interviewed during the assessment.
The conclusions that would result from the assessment would be that; lack of training of the worker at the pump station and inadequate training of the driver would be the primary cause of the incident. This is because if the worker at the pump station was well trained, she would not have pumped the bus with the wrong type of fuel. Also, if the driver were well conversant with the local rules at the local pump stations, he would not have presumed that the lady at the pump knew exactly what to do. Therefore, proper training of the driver of the local rules and on proper towing techniques would have helped mitigate the risk (Stanton & Webster, 2014). Additionally, proper labelling of the fuel caps would also help mitigate the risk of such accidents. If the diesel fuel cap is properly labelled, even a trainee employee would seldom mistake gasoline for diesel .and therefore if the bus needs diesel fuel, he would be correctly having the bus pumped with diesel. Furthermore, to mitigate these risks, the pump nozzle for diesel can be modified in a way that it would only fit into a diesel tank for a bus. This way if ever someone mistakes the fuel to pump into the bus, he or she can use the size of the pump nozzle to help mitigate the risk of pumping the wrong fuel into the bus. Also, instructions pertaining to the careful handling of the transmission area should be noted down among the proper ways pertaining to towing away the bus during a breakdown or an emergency.
It is, therefore, quite evident that there are many ways to mitigate the risks that come along with driving a bus. Although it is quite evident from this scenario that Murphy’s Law will always play its role, the company in partnership with the driver can do their best to reduce the occurrence of such accidents. This is because such accidents are due to human error and not an action of God.
References
Frame, J. (2003). Managing risk in organizations. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Stanton, T. and Webster, D. (2014). Managing Risk and Performance. Hoboken: Wiley.
