Risk Assessments, What are they good for........

Well I guess the title of this post summarises my opinion of risk assessments, so this should be a short post.

I just cannot work out what the point of them is. When you are writing a risk assessment, you obviously go over the risks you can think there would possibly be and then write down how you are planning to reduce or avoid the risks. The problem with accidents is that they are rarely predictable. If you are aware of a danger, you obviously automatically try to avoid it. And if there is a danger you are unaware of, and so are not working to avoid it, you are not aware of it to put in your risk assessment.

For example, lets say you are writing a risk assessment for boiling water. Obvious issues here, there is shockingly hot water that could scald you at any moment and a potentially a hot cooker you could burn yourself on. What is the point of writing a risk assessment for this. Is there any use in writing, "Try to avoid contact between the boiling water and your skin as this can cause irritation". And where is the line, is requiring everyone that boils water to undergo Water Thermal Manipulation Training too much? And then finally, how on earth does a risk assessment stop someone being stupid and knocking the boiling pot all over themselves. Though at least if someone does, you are secure in the knowledge that you wrote it down and so it's OK.

Perhaps I am totally missing the point here, and if I am, I am sure people will be very quick to tell me.