I worked in power plants for five years 45 years ago and observed back then that 1) safety training was often non-existent or deficient and 2) even with training, it was often ignored.
We were supposed to always lock out rotating machinery with our own locks, but that was rarely done. A colleague was inside a huge fan (think a squirrel cage fan 12 feet in diameter with a 2,000 hp motor) when it was started. Those things took a long time to get up to speed and he was able to scramble out the hatch before it got real ugly.
I was at work one day with a bad cold and had taken some over the counter cold medication. A co-worker was poking at a stuck pneumatic switch on a burner igniter with his finger and I warned him “Don’t do that! The igniter can retract at any time and take off your finger or hand.”
So what did I do? I asked “What’s wrong with it?” and poked it with MY finger. Sure enough, the igniter retracted and I pulled my hand away, but I’m still missing a tiny bit of the tip of my left index finger. I can see it right now as I type this!
I had a couple of life-threatening situations, but got through them all, thank God. Fortunately, I never saw anybody get killed or seriously injured.
I worked at a chemical plant for a while for Brown & Root, being young and impatient I was often frustrated at how the Instrument techs would stop doing something and call the electrician, although the small job was easy to do.
I came to see that all those little procedures, and the personal lockouts, etc were important, that if you stop doing them eventually a step would be skipped and explosions or death could happen.
There were little reminders of safety, such as the plant across the street having a fire they couldn’t put out and us having to dodge car-sized debris when a 10-story silo blew up at our plant, or me kneeling on dry concrete to take an instrument reading and then noticing the skin on my knee disappearing like in a horror movie.