It's elf 'n safety gone mad I tell you

[roys]

I had a job once of running up one of the main 11KV generators for the first on the site. I was obviously involved in the RIsk Assessment and the H&S guy asked what I reckoned the biggest risk was, I said tripping the power to the plant. They signed off on it accepting the risk.  Turns out we did trip the plant (gas detection of all things) inquiry was good when I said well I told that could happen.

 

[Geoff1946]

The main issue with H&S these days is that it’s removed the ability from most people under 45 to think for themselves ...

  

That is so true and not just in the workplace. The protection given to the general public by the "duty of care" reasoning is just making people more stupid. 

Effectively, it HAS to be impossible to injure yourself no matter how idiotic your actions.  Fall off a cliff ? Obviously the fault of whoever put up a fence you could still climb over.  and so on... Kids graze their knees on a playground?   Obviously the council aren't providing a safe playground, 

I believe that this approach breeds complacency and stupidity and kills off common sense. It can't be good in the long term.

Whilst we claim to be following EU laws I believe it's primarily a UK problem . I regularly visit France and Cyprus and in neither of these have I seen the extremes of public safety management which I have here. 

 

[ProDave]

Make something idiot proof, and someone will find a better idiot.

One industrial machinery Co I worked for sold a lot of stuff to China.  for that market they had to design it so it was impossible to deliberately hurt yourself.  If the operatives could manage to chop a finger off, they would get more in compensation that they would ever earn normally and considered it a challenge to do.

 

[poni]

The thing is when someone hurts themselves  the accident has happened, so what ever was in place it was not enough to stop them getting hurt , safety is always in hindsight 

I once had an H&S bod tell me that the guard was not tall enough(it was 1.5m) as he or someone else could get barrel and climb over it,so I asked how high should it be, as it have a 3m ladder in my van , he said that it was not up to him to tell me how tall the guard should be, he could only tell me if it was to low ,

 

[Evans Electric]

I can't find the Risk Assess.   I mentioned earlier   , found this from same job .   Although the printer was,  and still is ,   a good customer of ours  , we did this particular job under a project managing company .

Can you spot the Bull Shine  in section (7)    ? 

 

[ProDave]

Yes, BS by Acronym overload.

 

[kerching]

Back in the day when I was a mixed Gas Diving Instuctor risk,assessments were a challenge

R.isk......running out of gas underwater

counter measure...take more gas, check gauges, plan to exit with -1-3 start pressure

consequence of identified risk....death

How to,avoid....stay out of the water

or words to that effect

 

[binky]

My favourite was I was up a ladder fitting an outside light at a care home.  Some guy in a high viz jacket who was nothing to do with me, started shouting at me something about why was I not wearing a hard hat?  When i pointed out to him that nothing was likely to fall on me UP here, but I might drop something onto him down there, he stormed off in a huff.

this has always made me laugh, according to solar panel H&S we should wear Hi Viz and hard hat whilst on the roof - mind you some of the seagulls around here can be viscious  :slap

 

[UNG]

this has always made me laugh, according to solar panel H&S we should wear Hi Viz and hard hat whilst on the roof - mind you some of the seagulls around here can be viscious  :slap

Worked on a lot of buildings where it was a absolute requirement to wear a hard hat because of bird attacks, on one site we were told one guy had thought better and not bothered with a hat and ended up in the local hospitals ICU for 10 days he learned the hard way that gulls don't spare the aggression especially when they are nesting or have young. The other one with a roof with a large bird population was wearing gloves and masks to lessen the risk of extrinsic alveolitis form the bird droppings, we refused to work on one mast until it was cleaned due to it having an inch of bird droppings coating it in places

 

[Andy™]

Worked on a lot of buildings where it was a absolute requirement to wear a hard hat because of bird attacks,

if there is a genuine reason then fair enough. its the sites with a blanket policy of whatever needs to be worn, even though its unnecessary...

on one site... highvis must be worn at all times in the yard. fair enough, lots of machinery & vehicles. they dont enforce which colour is worn, but they pretty much recommend and only supply orange... you blend in nicely with all the orange machinery where as you stand out more with yellow...

think ive shown this photo before too, but this is one of the few sites i got kicked off for arguing with their H&S bloke. apparantly i cannot be on the van without fall arrest. after clarifying he wanted fall arrest and not restraint,  he didnt like that i pointed out that fall arrest needs several meters to catch a fall, id be on the ground before the absorber even started to rip... eventually, he agree'd i could get onto the van (needed to finish attaching lifting chains) but only if i used the steps he provided and placed. told him im not using them on loose soft ground like that. then got kicked off site... still had to get into the back to secure it before i could move the van though

 

[Evans Electric]

Now that IS  'elf n Safety gorn mad !!  

One of the problems with H&S  is when someone  becomes the person  responsible .    Suddenly the buck stops with you .     We had twelve on the payroll at one time  and it fell upon me .    

We issued  safety equipment to everyone , bought some new step ladders  etc .    First thing in the new safety regime ,  new apprentice ,straight from school , cuts his hand open with a Stanley knife  because no one  took the time  to warn him how dangerous they are when used wrongly.   

Then one guy demands we supply him with a complete set of tools because I picked him up on his stuff wasn't insulated. 

Also we had three vans , one new Escort , two older  Escorts ....two of them were always in good nick , the third  suffered from " Works Van Syndrome " .Although an older van the guy managed to wreck it in  six months .     Same guy leaves a brand new , one day old , Megger on top of his steps  , to be knocked down by other trades.

I didn't want the responsibility but had to do it .     Just dug out the manual from then .   

 

[binky]

@Evans Electric you've just reminded me of why I got rid of staff  :slap

 

[Andy™]

@Evans Electric you've just reminded me of why I got rid of staff  :slap

and why i have no intention of employing anyone

 

[UNG]

Me and my business partner had a staff that varied from 6 - 10 there was always the odd 1 or 2 that felt they were doing you a favour coming to work or thought they could run the business better than you were, when it got to the point that my business partner went close to going over that edge the decision was taken to close it all down. After a few years of doing some different work I went back to electrical work and one thing I decided very quickly was that I would not have any employees if I was asked to take on large jobs I would collaborate with other one man contractors.

The total lack of common sense and personal responsibility that has occurred over the last 25 years screws up any health and safety policy trying to second guess the next act of stupidity and putting measures in place to prevent it is a full time job in itself even the H&S guys push stupidity to new limits with some of their petty site requirements

 

[binky]

 there was always the odd 1 or 2 that felt they were doing you a favour coming to work or thought they could run the business better than you were,

becuase of the  1 or 2 you end up having to treat all staff like naughty children, or your buisness collapses from internal undermining. IF I ever employ staff ever again, (which I highly doubt) it will be run like a large coporation, ie trackers on vans, PO numbers for wholesalers, no fuel cards (stops the buggers spending money / abusing card) etc etc.

 

[Phoenix]

The total lack of common sense and personal responsibility that has occurred over the last 25 years screws up any health and safety policy trying to second guess the next act of stupidity and putting measures in place to prevent it is a full time job in itself even the H&S guys push stupidity to new limits with some of their petty site requirements

25 years co-incides exactly with the Conditional Fee Agreements Regulations 1995 which legalised 'ambulance chasers', I beleive a lot of it was set up by thatcher, but got delayed until long after she had left office. I'm guessing it ends up costing the counry more through cases against the NHS and local authories than it saves in legal aid. I beleive at the time there were warnings that we would end up with a litigation culture like the united states, however these were largely ignored

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7387796.stm

 

[Andy™]

 if I was asked to take on large jobs I would collaborate with other one man contractors.

pretty much what i do. at least they all work for themselves too, so are well aware how things are done and it works well