Rather than hijack my own thread, any comments re H&S , anecdotes etcetera or are they saving us from ourselves and our own stupidity? Or should we go with darwins theory of evolution?
There is nothing at all wrong with Health and Safety in the workplace (or indeed any other place) we all have the right to go to work and come home afterwards unharmed, bear in mind that 113 people a year die in workplace related accidents so there's at least 2 families you can go and ask this week if it's a bunch of arse or not. The majority of "elf 'n' safety gorn mad" stories bear no more relation to the truth than the "Winterval replacing Christmas" stories or the one mentioned earlier about conkers. Most of the rest are either misapplication or excuses to conceal the real motives behind a course of action.
Health And Safety Bunch Of Arse Or A Needed Valuable Service Provided By Caring People? It is both. The problem is that like many things it is used to support many different agendas. The risk assessment is often used to put a barrier between management and those doing the actual work, but the protection goes both ways if it is applied correctly. Most industries are much safer than they were only a few decades ago. However I am constantly surprised by the lack of the most basic protection used by workmen in public.
It's ridiculous and so are the people that work in it - wanna be traffic wardens the lot of them :Mooning:
The idea behind H&S rules/regs is fine in principle and where applied judiciously and with common sense, it protects people's lives and livelihoods. However, I know that when my employer tells me that certain H&S based rules are there for my protection, I know he is lying - it's there for the company's protection (against litigation by employees). No, I am not being cynical
It's needed for the soft blokes in hi viz who think it's cool to walk behind a car reversing while talking on their mobiles It's needed for the guys who drive forklifts off loading lorries It's needed for the lorry driver who didn't realise he was still loading and drove off It's needed for soft people who walk across a loading bay without hi viz Health and safety is needed to remind people to stay safe for whatever reason it is that they fail to do for themselves
It is both a bunch of arse & a valuable service. Based on my own meetings with H&S officers , undoubtedly some of what they say is total bollox but some of it is good stuff. None of it should take away peoples own awareness that they need to be responsible for their own health & safety. Generalising here but give people responsibility and they will behave responsibly, treat them like idiots ......
i quite like it in the tv house build programmes where mr and Mrs numpty along with the presenter are "on site" so they wear hi viz and a helmet..........ffs.
It's easy to ridicule health and safety, but I'd suggest that if those who do, were to experience a death or major injury to themselves or a close relative through poor safety, they (like others) would be seeking redress (and damages) from those responsible. I had to deal with a claim from a member of the public who claimed to have slipped in a company toilet, banging his head on a basin. He put a claim in with a "no win no fee" solicitor, and after 4 years of prevarication by the lawyers (helps boost the costs don't-cha know), the claimant received 900 quid. His solicitors bill was 9500 quid.
I think this hits the nail on the head I've had a few dealings with industrial accidents where people have ignored basic health and safety and died as a result. Others where the company have been extremely lax and the employee not bright enough to see the danger. You might think that they state the obvious but there are plenty of workers with low IQ and then there are Americans looking to claim
Exactly, so what the main point people are saying is the H&S is OTT in many factories - take the incident you mentioned - some would introduce hard hats in the toilets, or bubble wrapped walls. You may scoff, but similar things are happening all over.
thing is though that morons are going to be morons regardless of anything anywhere,no different in a factory to them being morons whilst driving. afraid this still isnt an excuse to allow blanket idiotic rules and regulations in order to save the morons from what is basically selfharming or worse other people harming. using these excuses to promote h+s simply isnt viable for the rest of us who are not morons,sorry. the only sure fire way of removing the morons from the equation is sniper rifles,the gene pool will simply be thinned down over time and a new form of employment position is also created,possibly for an out of work traffic warden/ a somewhat bitter unemployed hse officer..
They don't take H&S seriously at all in China, how dangerous is this! somebody wandering around on uneven ground, near heavy machinery with a camcorder, they might trip and scratch their knee!
Due to an accident at work, I'm currently stabbing away at the keyboard with two broken arms and septicemia. I was walking across the shop floor minding my own business when I tripped over a small man, put my arms out to try and save myself, and landed on a pin. So there is a prime example of Elf and Safety pin. On a serious note a sad fact of life is that we need H+S, as there are an awful lot of stupid or thoughtless people out there. Sometimes things are done "To get the job done" and the operative is working with the best of intentions, but his or her intentions might not get them home safely at night. As you all probably know, if we do something and get away with it, we are likely to repeat the behaviour unless someone or something gives us a wakeup call, so if that happens to be H+S awareness it's got to be for the good of everyone.
damm sight better than a lot of drivers ive seen and impressive as fk at that age. good bucket control considering his stature etc. obviously being china and their child working regime, not really a surprise. obviously h+s will be having babies but then they would have when i was driving a fergie sillage rig at the age of 9yrs on farm. not really identifiable with modern practises in this country but good video,is probably residing in some traffic wardens laptop right now,waiting to shown on a course somewhere..
To be honest he's better than most of the people who drive my loading shovels. I might track him down, fly him over, give him a job and pay him with Tizer and Haribo.
