The response time of safety-critical electrical components is improved during a safety cut-out. To this end, the outputs of two controllers used to control switches connected in series and pertaining to a switching device for the electrical components or machines to be switched are subjected to an AND operation. The transmission time from one controller to another is no longer relevant in terms of the safety cut-out, if one controller receives the cut-out signal from the input and the other controller is responsible for operating both switches in unison. The average response time during the safety cut-out increases accordingly.