[Closed] Silly Billy Health and Safety RULES

The driving lobby ensured that they were outside the remit of H&S law that's why.

If (geological) history has taught us anything, it is that evolution through adaptation and survival of the fittest is a good thing. Any thing that panders to the weakest/dumbest in a society, thus ensuring they have a higher chance of survival and ultimately reproducing must surely be a BAD thing. Maybe, for the sake of the survival of our species we need to do away with ALL H&S and Risk Assessments and Benefits and all that guff...

(tongue firmly in cheek)

I think the Health & Safety industry suffered early-on because of how the officer roles were positioned/who they appealed to. I have see lots of "security-guard syndrome" present in HSOs, which I think is responsible for this caricature that we now have - that may no longer be true.

Mrs Batfink works at a large University, and a big bit of exterior wooden cladding (about the size of a ping-pong table) fell-off from the 3rd floor and landed on a walkway. Nobody was hurt, but Mrs BF let facilities and the H&S office know. The next day, a 6ft temporary steel "safety fence" was erected around the whole building, with wooden tunnels built to protect the student's as they entered/exited. That afternoon, a 50ft section of the safety fence blew over onto a passing law professor, who had to be taken to hospital and is now suing.

The driving lobby ensured that they were outside the remit of H&S law that's why.

Unfortunately in Batfinks example the 2 events though linked are not cause and effect. Not erecting a fence properly has nothing to do with making sure the rest of the building cladding is properly secured. Not doing it and just assuming that the one bit of cladding was faulty is negligent and not right. Protecting people till you check is the right way to go about it.

I went to a demolition site to speak with the site manager once. The job had been done and all that was left was rubble covered flat ground. All staff bar the manager had left for the day, so no machinery running. He tried to insist that I needed to wear a hard hat to walk between the gate and the site office. I declined.

I did hear once that the most common item to fall from height on construction sites are hard hats. Delicious irony...

Sandwich - Member
strange how health and safety doesnt seem to cover or have an intrest in company vehicle drivers, training, safety etc, same with lgv drivers,and trucks.

The driving lobby ensured that they were outside the remit of H&S law that's why.

ernie_lynch - Member
No one died here :

😯 😯 😯

SOL* Twice...

Difficult to see how it could have been any closer.

*Swore Out Loud

On the subject of hi-viz vests, since when did they become regular casual wear for a certain segment of society?

Blame the trend setters

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Station staff wont have access to sufficiently robustly engineered information system, or be able to setup a safe way of working (there wont be enough 'spare' staff to setup lookouts etc). It seems daft, but is it worth the risk to go and get little timmys hat? 😉

Hence the 'call control', mantra.

Unfortunately in Batfink's example the 2 events though linked are not cause and effect

Sorry, weren't really intended to be - just an amusing story. Mrs BF had to escalate this hugely to get them to do anything at all was bad enough - the fact that the mitigation then injured more people that the original H&S issue is, well, "in-line with the performance that she has come to expect from her H&S team".

Incidently, whilst all that was ongoing, the H&S officer booked a meeting with Mrs BF because there was an unresolved 4 year old incident in the risk management tracking system.

The incident? Mrs BFs predecessor had reported a papercut. The irony was that the papercut was reported to demonstrate the officiousness of the system. So here they were, in a meeting discussing what box has to be ticked in a computer for a 4 year old papercut, whilst bits of the building are falling off, and safety fences are falling over and squashing elderly professors.

I'm not sure I really have a point..... maybe it's that the good work done by H&S teams in general is tarnished by some of the jobsworths that the role seems to attract ("never mind that falling masonry, what about this 4 year old papercut!").

So making it really easy to spot the humans in a work placement with vehicles and moving machinery is a bad thing?

He tried to insist that I needed to wear a hard hat to walk between the gate and the site office. I declined.

[quote=sharkattack ]In my local Job Centre all of the desk bound staff have hi-viz vests on the back of their chairs. This is because the car park, directly outside the building, is shared with the general public. Apparently it's a disciplinary offence to walk from the building to your car without your vest on.

Sounds like they did a proper risk assessment - as mentioned above a few times, stuff involving vehicles tends to get ignored, when it's actually some of the most dangerous things people do. There's certainly a quantifiable risk to crossing a car park on foot, one which is likely to be reduced by wearing hi-viz.

Also a former H&S rep, though mostly for office based stuff rather than construction. Though I have filled out risk assessments for going on trials, including working on very big ships (the biggest the RN owns) and very big planes (the biggest the RAF owns) - I always made sure that any risk assessment I wrote or audited for off-site trials mentioned driving. Thankfully we had a culture where it was frowned upon to drive tired - that being probably the most dangerous thing a lot of people do in the course of their job.

but not the royal train

I love the idea that you aren't allowed on the railway track without checking with the control centre in case you get hit by the Royal Train.

🙂

Most people seem to get hit by things they didn't think we're there. So with the 2 options of checking or memorising all the trains and any updates I know which I would do.

I work for a tier2 COMAH site company, we basically have 100tons of highly toxic liquid on site and have a large college next door and are on the outskirts of a large town.

We had an accident in our German plant which evacuated the whole town and cost us millions.

I worked in the same industry abroad and in developing countries and was often appalled at their lack of H&S.

I think the level of H&S is right in this country and I feel good in the knowledge its there to make sure I get home in one piece.

I've currently got me feet up in the sun on the northerly tip of New Zealand..

H&S seems to be be based much more on common sense here.. which is bloody lovely

A particular favourite of note in the last couple of weeks has been the minimalist approach of a simple 'look out for trains' sign when a busy A-road crosses railway lines 🙂

There honestly doesn't seem to be a huge influx of injured folk at the minor injuries department (other half works at the hospital).. I really can't understand it

I know someone who used to do h&s for a construction company who did the motorways. They needed more first aiders so worked out who was always on site. They soon recognised that the tipper truck drivers were so had them all basic training; typical hazards, basic first aid and the like.
Anyway, a few weeks later a surveyor was checking aggregate quantities which involves simply walking round the big piles of gravel and measuring the circumference. As he was doing this he got a stone in his welly so went over to the fence by the side to shake it out.

As he's doing so, a tipper truck came past and saw this bloke so stopped, jumped out, picked his shovel up and with an almighty swing, smashed him to the ground, breaking his arm and two ribs in the process.

When they were investigating why, he told them he'd seen the surveyor "being electrocuted at the side of the road" and so he'd used his hse training to save him.

It was a wooden fence.

[i]a well known trade supplier, the staff are not allowed to carry anything from the shelf to the customer service counter, it must go in wheeled trolleys, rubber washers or car jacks must all be transported not carryed[/i]

Thats not health and safety, thats over zealous company policy.

At work we had problems with a building being vandalised so they installed security fencing and a 5 foot pedestrian gate around the entrance. The locked gate is on the top step of a flight of stairs and is the only access to carry bulky items inside.

Just to complicate the process of balancing tool boxes on the top step whilst wrestling with the gate, they've fitted a very strong closing mechanism on it, and to prevent it being broken the gate will only open about a third of the way before hitting a big spiky bit of metal thats been bolted to the floor as a door stop.

When you leave, the gate pushes you off the top step. I was trying to find out if it met building regs but it doesn't seem that specific about landings at the top of external steps, though obviously you couldn't have a solid door right on the edge...

Sounds like they did a proper risk assessment - as mentioned above a few times, stuff involving vehicles tends to get ignored, when it's actually some of the most dangerous things people do. There's certainly a quantifiable risk to crossing a car park on foot, one which is likely to be reduced by wearing hi-viz.

I wonder how many times the job centre staff have to cross the car park to get to and from their vehicles in a working day? There is a quantifiable risk to crossing a car park on foot which of course is more significant the greater the number of times you cross it, hence hi-viz for parking attendants, trolly collectors and those car wash people in sainsburys. If the total amount of times you cross the car park per day is the same as that for the public who use the job centre (ie when you get there and when you get home again) then i would argue that there should be some serious consideration of the risk with the design of the car park or the behaviour of drivers in it. Is there a 'standard' for what constitutes enough visits to and from your car in a working day to put you at significantly greater risk then the public also using it?

Of course appropriate H & S consideration is v important. What gets on my goat is the amount of paperwork that Clients / Project Managers / CDM Coordinators, etc. will request of an obviously experienced company (usually who they have worked with numerous times before) to 'cover their own arses' when undertaking projects. And ultimately all that paperwork is usually aking the same question numerous times, ie. 'Are you and your staff competent ?

Without checking competency they can become liable should something happen.
"Your employed this company to do this job. A guy got killed. What steps did you take to ensure that wouldn't happen? Did you check they were capable of carrying out the work safely? Where's the paperwork proving this?"
"I always used them and didn't have to ask"
Wrong answer. Not working in compliance with CDM. Possible corporate manslaughter charge.
Yes it's arse covering but if it saves lives and kees your arse out of jail what's not to like?

Ernie - that clip is like something out of a video game. 😯

Hopefully he got to fight his boss shortly afterwards.

Sounds like they did a proper risk assessment - as mentioned above a few times, stuff involving vehicles tends to get ignored, when it's actually some of the most dangerous things people do. There's certainly a quantifiable risk to crossing a car park on foot, one which is likely to be reduced by wearing hi-viz.

Presumably lots of office based stuff has a quantifiable risk attached to it, and simple measures available to reduce it - paper clips instead of staplers, no hot drinks, flat shoes only, no objects left on floor, taking the lift downwards instead of the stairs.

This is more about the threshold of risk rather than the fact that there is a risk.

As he's doing so, a tipper truck came past and saw this bloke so stopped, jumped out, picked his shovel up and with an almighty swing, smashed him to the ground, breaking his arm and two ribs in the process.

When they were investigating why, he told them he'd seen the surveyor "being electrocuted at the side of the road" and so he'd used his hse training to save him.

It was a wooden fence.

[url= http://darwinawards.com/legends/legends2000-02.html ]Urban Myth Thang[/url] ^^

I'm an EHS manager and debated whether to reply to this..

Health and Safety is designed to protect the health of the worker (mesothelioma anyone? no? how about a nice bit of noise induced hearing loss?) and safety (who fancies a nice big fall from an unprotected edge? I mean, having to clip on that pesky harness is such a waste of time!)

Properly managed, through sensible assessment, it won't stop work, nor will it require safety kit to make a cup of tea.

PPE is a last resort and should only issued to people assuming the hazards posed by a process can't be controlled in another way such as engineering a problem out, isolating it through guarding or minimising exposure duration.

I hate this thought that other countries don't have the same rules as us.. the American OSHA system is harsh in some ways and lax in others, they don't want guarding as long as the operators has to hold two buttons down to operate the machinery, fine until something is ejected and strikes them in the face (as happened with a plant in our company last year). Just because Thai workers balance on top of a building with no safety kit, it doesn't mean they are not utterly terrified, they do it because no one is stopping the companies from making it safer. If they refuse to do the work, they'll lose their job and won't be able to feed their families.

What a lot of people have been talking about is the lack of awareness shown by individuals, a lack of understanding, or the sheer terror of having a civil claim against them.

The older style of safety legislation was prescriptive, pre Health and Safety at Work Act, the factory inspectors would tell you what to do to make things safer, now it's the responsibility of the employer to do this.

The thing is, I do what I do because I don't to ever have to phone up the wife of a colleague and explain that he's currently in hospital again.

If the people who have quoted 'elf n safety' rules actually stopped reading the daily mail and found out a little bit more about the real story, they may realise it's not as bad as they've been led to believe.

I saw this guy speak last year, he thought the wearing of safety glasses was too much trouble, until an violent exothermic reaction caused the substance to explode in his face, when he told the audience how he had to have his eyes removed due to the injuries he sustained puts 'Elf n Safety' in perspective somewhat.. now he campaigns to make industry safer

Just my thoughts

Ian

The best health and safety video ever. Yes it's in German but I've seen it used on many British construction sites. Lets say it's quite visual. A great way to use humor to bring health and safety to your attention.

I love the idea that you aren't allowed on the railway track without checking with the control centre in case you get hit by the Royal Train.

I'll go out on a limb and suggest that not every member of station staff is checking the WTT to ensure no freights are due either, and a quick glance at the information screens probably isn't enough to ensure it's clear!

That said... I wonder if the royal train has ever hit someone, collecting a lost phone or otherwise.

Going back to driving...
If a construction firm's heavy machinery crushes a worker or member of the public on a building site there will be a HSE investigation and possibly corporate manslaughter prosecutions.

If the same thing happens 10 yards away, in the road, the driver might get a £100 fine. More likely than not, he will be able to say "I can't operate this equipment safely, so I crushed someone that I couldn't see" and that will be an excuse rather than an admission of failure/guilt.

A particular favourite of note in the last couple of weeks has been the minimalist approach of a simple 'look out for trains' sign when a busy A-road crosses railway lines

There honestly doesn't seem to be a huge influx of injured folk at the minor injuries department (other half works at the hospital).. I really can't understand it

If you're hit by a train, you've probably bypassed 'minor injuries' and gone straight to 'morgue'.

I can understand it.

The US also has your minimalist approach to many rail crossings. 14 people a week are killed by trains. Don't know what that proves, other than trains kill people.

Rail staff at stations are not allowed onto the tracks to retriev personal items of passengers even when they know no trains are due.They must contact control and ask for permision, then awit permision to be granted.

Seems perfectly sensible to me.

National Grid are the absolute worst. For exmaple

on site you must wear all PPE at all times. So if you're inspecting a frame and cover in the footway that means flame retardant overalls helmet, glasses, gloves hi viz, boots. Admittedly that's just maily a PITA but it does lead to 'i've got my PPE on therefore I'm safe' type problens

With the Electricity DNO's a close second. They each have a different set of Electriacal Saftety rules including different coloured cones, helmets, barriers tape, with all meaning something different depending on which DNO youre working on. This is actually truly frickin dangerous, especially considering a lot of the linesmen etc are from Jordan or Romania where despite voltages and eset up being the sma as the uk they have the old National Grid colour coding which is different gain to that pn the DNO's and current national grid standards. Madness.

But if you really wnat to get excited about it I suggest you go and work in Qatar with the Philipinos and ****stanis that are dying in their droves to build football stadiums cos nobody over there gives a shit.

"I can't operate this equipment safely, so I crushed someone that I couldn't see"

But if you really wnat to get excited about it I suggest you go and work in Qatar with the Philipinos and ****stanis that are dying in their droves to build football stadiums cos nobody over there gives a shit.

But at least they're getting things done 😉

[quote=BigButSlimmerBloke ] "I can't operate this equipment safely, so I crushed someone that I couldn't see"
Don't you need some kind of licence to operate equipment on the public highway? Or is that more elf and sayftee gorn mad?

You do, but there's no ongoing training and if you're proven to be incompetent you still keep your operating licence and can carry on operating dangerous equipment.

...and (bus) passengers from jumping in front of passing vehicles.

[quote=martinhutch ]Presumably lots of office based stuff has a quantifiable risk attached to it, and simple measures available to reduce it - paper clips instead of staplers, no hot drinks, flat shoes only, no objects left on floor, taking the lift downwards instead of the stairs.
This is more about the threshold of risk rather than the fact that there is a risk.

Yep, but as you point out, it's about threshold of risk - the risk from a stapler is far less than the risk or being hit by a car (the likelihood might be low, but the severity is high). The risks involved in driving or interacting with vehicles as a pedestrian/cyclist are so normalised that they tend to be ignored.

I'm easily amused. Is it now likely that staff will be urged to use the lift to descend, as going down steps is dangerous; and for health and exercise reasons, encouraged to walk up one or two flights rather than take the lift?

I have just temporarily picked up responsibility for a bunch of labs which my predecessor had turned into a 'work-free safety zone'. At the request of the users, we completely revised the procedures, giving them a lot more responsibility and freedom. It took about three months to sort it all out and at the end they all said 'Yes, yes we understand. We all think this is a good way to go'.

Tomorrow I am bollocking two of them for a cretinous piece of utter stupidity, less than three weeks after the new procedures came in. I intend to make a terrible example.

Bedds post makes a lot of sense to me.

Again, I am now IOSH and embarking on further training, and involved in Play Safety Forum etc for work. This week I am finishing our revamped H&S policy and Risk Benefit Assessments.

I work in an industry where we have a slightly different approach to risk - education. In a factory (for example), you want flat floor, that is grippy and steps even, grippy and hand railed. In a playground, we need wobbly steps, odd surfaces and lack of handrails. This is a good thing, it allows children to learn physical literacy and manage risk decisions for themselves. In line with ROSPA, HSE, the Lord Young Report, Play Safety Forum etc, we don't apply the 'rules' as you would in industry, and use risk benefit assessments, dynamic risk assessments, low paperwork and much more staff judgement.

This is extending to educational trips, classrooms etc where we focus on the unnaceptable risks (paper cuts and bruises are acceptable, as are a multitude of minor injuries and issues) and focus on the real and unnaceptable risks). Again, this change in culture is now extending into many other areas as we realise the benefits of not impacting operations or restricting learning.

All the 'elf n safety gorn mad' rules need to be put I to context of 'as far as reasonable practical' and 'risks cannot be reduced to nil' and 'foreseeable' . HSE quotes and excerpts from h&s at work act, not mine.

But, H&S does stop people trying to kill or injure themselves daily, and has massively reduced accidents that cost time, money, reputation and (most importantly) health. It is proven to work. But it is also proven that we need the next generation to experience risk positively, to help with the safe culture we need.

My work this week is scrutinised by colleagues on Friday, and then shared nationally as 'best practice' for all schools. I better get it right....

Years ago we had an Elf'n' Safety man come into our office to tell us about it all and particularly about CDM. I asked him about ALARP, and he had no idea what I was talking about. Says it all really.
SFARP isn't quite such a catchy Initialisation.

I've been to India & 😯

That is all.

@ap

I agree, there are (as in any job) some less than great 'elf n safet folk. And who would argue? it is a brave person to pop thier head above the parapet of H&S says (or child protection) and say 'really?' Or 'why?'

I am increasingly asking for evidence for some of the daft things we bump into. Show. Me. The. Ruling. Or. Law. Or. Court. Case. Nothing else matters, I want first hand and recorded, not rumor or I once heard or we always have.
We have increasingly seen 'rulings' overturned or H&S reverse options.

We are also increasingly leaning on people to record when it is an issue of liability or insurance, not H&S. And again, I want to see the letter from the insurance company stating why and when. In our experience, the insurance companies are also subject to urban myth and one person once decided on one unrelated case without experience....

I've not read all the thread so this may have been covered already.

So, lets say you run a big (or small) company that has some dangerous environments in which people must work. Sometimes people get injured. Sometimes people go home dead. It's extremely sad, but it happens.

If someone gets injured or killed, the H&S executive will be all over you because quite rightly, everyone deserves to go home in the same state they came to work. And they'll fine you and give you a bad rep and they can shut you down. No really, they can shut you down.

So you're going to have to show willing and drive a safety program through your organisation. And then people will claim it's H&S gone mad, but hey, you're still trading and maybe a few less people are going home with one less arm than they arrived with.