VDE Tools

[Andy™]

See post 29.

post 29 doesn't answer the question of what risks a high vis will prevent on a domestic job on a roof. hardhat arguably yes whilst climbing up/down, but not necessary once on the roof. high vis er.. what risk?

 

[poni]

I think you will find common sense is not so common,
and the main reason that we are made to wear all the same PPE is that it is easy to police, as its company policy ,and it lowers the percentage of liability in court when there is an accident,

 

[Sharpend]

And that my Poni is exactly what it’s all about. Protect the company first.

If it was genuinely about individual H&S then why isn’t it mandatory when in your own home doing diy?

Answer: you can’t claim against your own stupidity/accident.

 

[Andy™]

and then just to throw in some other inconsistencies... there is a company i do some work for where all their machinery / brand is orange. of course, all the supplied high vis to their workers is also orange. which blends in nicely with all the orange machinery in the yard, making people harder to see than if they were in yellow...

at least those in the green / blue high vis are more visable (even though the standard for high vis is only yellow & orange)

basically they care more about their product branding than actual safety

(same company also decided everyone in the workshop must wear eye protection at all times everywhere. reasonable in the weld area at the back (screened off from main workshop), not so reasonable everywhere else, like parts / stores)

 

[UNG]

Reminds me of a job about 20 years ago across multiple sites after the work was started someone (a jobsworth) decided as it was all one job the CONDAM regs applied, so a meeting was hastily arranged to adopt this arrangement and the site became the county boundary so the NEBOSH qualified jobsworth decreed he would take the role of principal contractor and all RA and SMS had to be done by a NEBOSH or IOSH qualified person so I asked when he was going to amend the current overall RA and SMS he said no amendment was needed and I pointed out as the site had become the whole county it was not practicable to only drive at 5MPH while onsite there were a few other points that he also had to concede. Move on a few days and as jobsworth was the only person with quals to do the site specific RA and SMS we went to a site and started kitting up to climb a radio mast to assess the work needed when asked why he was not kitting up to climb he told us he was not qualified to climb so the question to him was how he intended to write an RA and SMS for work he had no qualification for and little or no knowledge of so he then backtracked on the requirements he set a few days earlier and set the requirement as the RA and SMS had to be written by a person suitably qualified for the task in hand

 

[Andy™]

sounds about right, someone writing the RAMS for something they know nothing about. as usual, it'll be full of unnecessary ***** that's irrelevant to the job and no one reads

kinda same with site inductions. 45 minutes watching a video that's about 40 mins of uselss info (usually about how good and safe the site is, how they are following standards etc) and 5 minutes of something actually useful

and then you get questions at the end to make sure you've watched the video. one a few weeks ago Q1 was somethin g like 'our company has 6 core values' true / false. er, i don't care, that's not relevant to my /site safety. other one was what colour is a dry powder extinguisher. one of the answers had blue in it, but the other colour in the same answer was wrong, and all the others were wrong. when mentioned, they didn't seem to care that their quetions were wrong and more concerned about that i had the answers they wanted...

this was also the site that made a right fuss about safe isolation (nothing wrong with that), and that you will be supplied with a red coloured padlock (contractors red, site staff use blue). i then get a yellow padlock. he didn't look too happy when i said ill use my own, that you won't have a spare key for

 

[MikeJhn]

post 29 doesn't answer the question of what risks a high vis will prevent on a domestic job on a roof. hardhat arguably yes whilst climbing up/down, but not necessary once on the roof. high vis er.. what risk?

Hi-Vis vests enable you to be seen and possibly someone can shout a warning to you about an possible incident about to happen, the exception is those who have a radio blaring away that no one is listening too, this is going round in circles with those opposing trying to make out the H&S is a nonsense, the nonsense is their reasoning, not thought through and constantly throwing nonsense scenarios into the mix, H&S legislation is here to stay, accept it. It can't take in all aspects of Safety and Health, but what it can do it concentrate the mind of those without vision of the consequences of their own actions or inactions.

 

[UNG]

Was told on a site that they didn't want me to use rope access on site and offered to supply me a few alternatives when I pointed out that the ground conditions for placing the outriggers made the use of the alternatives potentially dangerous and their objection to rope access was because they had no knowledge of the access method, they finally admitted it was and let us get on with the job. I think that site had a 3 hour induction that was a waste of 4 hours

 

[poni]

I think that site had a 3 hour induction that was a waste of 4 hours

site inductions. 45 minutes watching a video

how about a 1 day Induction (cross rail) or even a 3 day induction , I cant remember if it was Channel Tunnel, the Shard or the Olympic site, it was like a play with paid actors and full set

 

[Andy™]

Hi-Vis vests enable you to be seen and possibly someone can shout a warning to you about an possible incident about to happen, the exception is those who have a radio blaring away that no one is listening too, this is going round in circles with those opposing trying to make out the H&S is a nonsense, the nonsense is their reasoning, not thought through and constantly throwing nonsense scenarios into the mix, H&S legislation is here to stay, accept it. It can't take in all aspects of Safety and Health, but what it can do it concentrate the mind of those without vision of the consequences of their own actions or inactions.

on a domestic roof like i asked where the risk was, high vis won't make any difference in that case.

on larger site, ironically, those not wearing high vis are usually more visable. they can be seen from the H&S office on the other side of the site

as for noise, what do think about those wearing ear defenders because the site noise is above limits? guess there no point wearing a high vis, you won't be able to hear someone shouting warnings anyway

im not saying you should have H&S, you definitely need it. you just need what's appropriate for the situation instead of blanket policies and others that have no relevance to the job because someone is too incompetant to assess the job properly

 

[MikeJhn]

"I will say it again" its not on the roof that is the problem unless the roof is being loaded out by a crane from the ground floor, its accessing and egressing the roof that needs the Hi-Viz.

If the site noise is above an acceptable level that ear defenders have to be worn, then H&S should kick in to reduce the noise to an acceptable level, do you just pull these scenarios out of a hat without any thought? It certainly seem like it.

 

[Andy™]

"I will say it again" its not on the roof that is the problem unless the roof is being loaded out by a crane from the ground floor, its accessing and egressing the roof that needs the Hi-Viz.

If the site noise is above an acceptable level that ear defenders have to be worn, then H&S should kick in to reduce the noise to an acceptable level, do you just pull these scenarios out of a hat without any thought? It certainly seem like it.

climbing a ladder does not require a high vis. where's the risk that wearing one would reduce?. maybe at ground level going accross a yard yes, but in a house, which we were on about, where's the risk?

noise can't always be reduced and ear defenders need to be worn in some situations. if noise and the risk from excessive noise could be eliminated like you seem to think it can, then there would be no need to ear protection (which would be great). now apply the same logic to your high vis argument, why wear a high vis when if the risk is high enough to need one then you should remove the risk to not need it

where do i pull these scenarios from? real life experience of doing work. and so far, not killing / injuring myself or others.

every situation different and different methods / PPE will be required. again, blanket rules of 'you must do this' or 'you must wear this' are simply a sign of incompetent people who have no idea of the real world. you might have lots of qualifications in H&S but all that is useless outside a classroom

 

[poni]

materials being craned overhead, then I would accept a hiviz and hard hats would be required.

on any site we are not allowed to work under suspended loads, they are not allowed move materials over the heads of people that are working beneath, a hard hat will not save you if a skip lands on top of you, but I can see a HI-VIS helping to stop them moving loads above your head, as the banksman can see where you are on site, they use different colours hats now of different jobs on big sites, green for first aiders, black for supervisors, orange for banksmen (maybe that should be banks-person) ,white for most others and yellow for visitors, although this can very between sites,

 

[MikeJhn]

Large or small site makes no difference, if you are working on a roof, materials and equipment still have to get onto the roof, any of that can be dropped or dislodged during accessing or fixing, anyone below is at risk, so how do you get your equipment and tools onto the roof?

Your hypothesis on noise was not logical in any way, ear defenders are for those doing noisy work, the noise is local not overall the site, maximum limits apply to any site.

 

[binky]

on any site we are not allowed to work under suspended loads, they are not allowed move materials over the heads of people that are working beneath, a hard hat will not save you if a skip lands on top of you, but I can see a HI-VIS helping to stop them moving loads above your head, as the banksman can see where you are on site, they use different colours hats now of different jobs on big sites, green for first aiders, black for supervisors, orange for banksmen (maybe that should be banks-person) ,white for most others and yellow for visitors, although this can very between sites,

I get that Poni, but I was thinking of say an unsecure piece of sheet material, caught by the wind, could blow sideways some distance, and a hat may help reduce injuries? Not that anything should be craned without being secure in the first place.

 

[binky]

Hi-Vis vests enable you to be seen

I don't think I would have too much trouble seeing someone on a domestic roof without Hi Viz, unless blind. Photo below is a fairly typical domestic installation. But this is exactly what I'm getting at, to say we are not safe without hi viz and a hard hat on this roof is total cods-wallop.

this is going round in circles with those opposing trying to make out the H&S is a nonsense, the nonsense is their reasoning, not thought through and constantly throwing nonsense scenarios into the mix, H&S legislation is here to stay, accept it. It can't take in all aspects of Safety and Health, but what it can do it concentrate the mind of those without vision of the consequences of their own actions or inactions.

H&S is very necessary, what is a nonsense is over zealous application of it.

Lets get back to real basics, the role of H&S is to assess a job for potential dangers and take REASONABLE precautions to mitigate any risks identified. It's as simple as that. The word reasonable coming from HSE document, I've forgotten which one.

 

[UNG]

Hi-Vis vests enable you to be seen and possibly someone can shout a warning to you about an possible incident about to happen, the exception is those who have a radio blaring away that no one is listening too, this is going round in circles with those opposing trying to make out the H&S is a nonsense, the nonsense is their reasoning, not thought through and constantly throwing nonsense scenarios into the mix, H&S legislation is here to stay, accept it. It can't take in all aspects of Safety and Health, but what it can do it concentrate the mind of those without vision of the consequences of their own actions or inactions.

The problem is health and safety has become a job sector and industry of it's own with it's own qualifications which evidently makes anybody holding them experts to assess the hazards and control measures of any work process without any knowledge or training in that work process and alot of the time they work to the safest outcome which is not to do the work at all
The nonsense is some of the pronoucements that these H&S experts make, one place I did some work at had to sack the H&S manager after his risk assessments blocked all building maintenance work over a 2½ year period and then he declared that some of the buildings were unsafe because of a lack of maintenance at that point he was sacked so the work could be done, I did come across this guy working for another company around the same time and found he couldn't be anymore obstructive if he tried

 

[binky]

The problem is health and safety has become a job sector and industry of it's own with it's own qualifications which evidently makes anybody holding them experts to assess the hazards and control measures of any work process without any knowledge or training in that work process and alot of the time they work to the safest outcome which is not to do the work at all
The nonsense is some of the pronoucements that these H&S experts make, one place I did some work at had to sack the H&S manager after his risk assessments blocked all building maintenance work over a 2½ year period and then he declared that some of the buildings were unsafe because of a lack of maintenance at that point he was sacked so the work could be done, I did come across this guy working for another company around the same time and found he couldn't be anymore obstructive if he tried

Yep, they get a NEBOSH certificate and behave like knobs. H&S isn't to stop people working.

 

[MikeJhn]

Large or small site makes no difference, if you are working on a roof, materials and equipment still have to get onto the roof, any of that can be dropped or dislodged during accessing or fixing, anyone below is at risk, so how do you get your equipment and tools onto the roof?

Are you going to answer my question?

 

[MikeJhn]

Just to lighten the mood a bit: