From what I have seen, the teams winning the safety awards are the ones with a lot of money and abundance of safety theater.
My team can't afford to buy 100 pairs of extra safety glasses, print MSDS sheets and evacuation plans for all the teams, buy medicine calenders for the elderly, and provide gloves for all of our team members. It's just not possible.
What we can do is create a killer safety training program for our participants and teach other teams how to create a safe environment for their participants as well. We can formulate the safest route of robot travel to the field to prevent potential robot back-ups and injuries and design our pit around functional safety.
I am not saying that the safety awards are meaningless, because these teams put a LOT of effort into safety. I just wish that teams could have a level playing field financially when it comes to the safety awards..
2013 Winner of the Industrial Safety Award at the DC Regional
2X Star of the Day