Compensation Nation to come to an End?

I work for a US company – they take EHS very seriously tron so it's not all Americans clearly…

we are not allowed to feed the birds,

Because someone doesn't want to clean up bird poo, or thinks it is a bit unclassy to have loads of birds around, so they use health and safety as an excuse.

not allowed to have door mats,incase somebody trips over them,

Because someone is on a campaign against comedy doormats, because they think it makes the place look less classy, so they use health and safety as an excuse.

must park within all bays and no where else,

Because someone doesn't want the hassle of sorting out a parking free for all, so they use health and safety as an excuse.

Perhaps somebody can explain why … drivers dont need to be trained and rtested by their companies to be proved competent at driving

Seeing as ~3000 people a year die on the roads maybe that wouldn't be such a bad idea. I think a few cycling organisations have suggested H&S law for commercial vehicles should be extended beyond a workplace- so if someone gets killed by a skip lorry it'd be treated as a workplace incident and not just a road "accident".

TINAS – I am absolutly certain on the conkers and safety glasses one – I read an article by the person who started the spoof

Most of the supposed H&S red tape on here is nothing to do with H&S. Just people using it as an excuse.

I was prevented from using my bike on work business last year due to H&S, employers reasoning was that because I'd been diagnosed with epilepsey secondary to a brain tumour. Obviously cannot stop me cycling to work, but it is only a 15 minute walk, so unless I am planning to be off site again in the day, it is hardly worth the effort & hassle to ride down to the hospital.

They looked a bit shocked when i said I'd overcome their concerns by writing a letter accepting responsibility in case I did have a seizure whilst cycling on work business.

The assessment took place in an office, there was no real consideration towards the cycling issue, it was simply the Trust covering themselves. When can i cycle on work business? 12 months after last seizure, which is exactly the same as DVLA guidlines for returning to driving…. 😈

I had to fill out a form and then have a 30minute assessment to be allowed a new mouse mat the other day….

1 – I do not believe you

2 – True rebels simply buy them from WH Smith. Stick it to the man!

🙂

Didn't Labour change the law to allow no-win-no-fee? That seems to have been the source of a lot of the problems. They are massively hyped up in the media though.

TINAS – I am absolutly certain on the conkers and safety glasses one – I read an article by the person who started the spoof

Link?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/dec/09/conkers-goggles-myth-health-safety

http://www.hse.gov.uk/myth/index.htm

TandemJeremy – Member

You mean freedom for companies to kill their employees and customers?

I bet nothing significant is repealed as a result of that anyway. A simple piece of populist daily wailism

A huge amount of what is blamed on H&S legislation is nothing of the sort and the majority is made up by the papers

Bollocks.

No not Tj talking bollocks, it's me saying bollocks because I have to agree with him and that just goes against the grain, so far he hasn't said a word I can disagree with how ruddy disappointing.

As the Tandem dude says H&S is cited as the reason for lots of things but really it's just an excuse for something else or daily mail horsetwaddle, read the HSE myths site its really really good.

Damn.

I was being talked at by some woman in the pub one night, she was complaining her feet were killing her but she couldnt take her shoes off,
Why not? I ask her.
Coz Im the health and safety officer at work, she says, what if I cut them on some glass, what would I tell people?
Hmm.

Catfood maybe she should get some shoes that fit.

Restaurants had banned toothpicks on safety grounds and contestants in a pancake race had been told "to walk, not run, because of rain, he added."

TBH as soon as he said that, you knew all you needed to know. Perhaps we could have a new law against obvious bullshit? That'd help no end

They should just ban the Daily Mail and the Sun – all the H&S scare stories would disappear overnight!

This article is utter gash. Negligence in personal injury (or strict liability for employers) has got very little to do with health and safety laws, and none of the substance of what he seems to be talking about deals with negligence.

I suspect "compensation culture" was just a phrase that jumped out at the BBC news bod typing this up because s/he thought s/he could just "recycle" lots of "quotes" about "conkers and toothpicks" despite it all being obvious "bollocks".

where i live, block of appartments, we are not allowed to feed the birds, not allowed to have door mats, incase somebody trips over them, must park within all bays and no where else, All health and Safety related.

Seems reasonable to me.

Sorry Toys – nice of you to admit it tho.

I work in risk management, technical risk management.
The simple fact is people can't cope with 'really really small risks', its like they rebound in their brain to 50/50. Honestly, we've been writing a paper on risk perceptions in IT (still awake?) and some of our findings are quite comical really. Stuff we find would make you scratch your head. Risk is a very over abused word which is manipulated to mean what you need it to mean.

TJ – thanks for the link to the HSE mythbusters site, however it contradicts you on the conkers. Go to September 2007:

"This is one of the oldest chestnuts around, a truly classic myth. A well-meaning head teacher decided children should wear safety goggles to play conkers. Subsequently some schools appear to have banned conkers on ‘health & safety’ grounds or made children wear goggles, or even padded gloves!"

So, no not a myth, in at least one school, children did have to wear goggles to play conkers.

I think you enboldened the wrong bit there

This is one of the oldest chestnuts around, a truly classic myth. A well-meaning head teacher decided children should wear safety goggles to play conkers. Subsequently some schools appear to have banned conkers on ‘health & safety’ grounds or made children wear goggles, or even padded gloves!"

So, no not a myth, in at least one school, children did have to wear goggles to play conkers

It clearly states in your quote that it is a myth …epic fail

where i live, block of appartments, we are not allowed to feed the birds, not allowed to have door mats, incase somebody trips over them, must park within all bays and no where else, All health and Safety related.

Health and safety?
More like stopping the place being over-run with pigeons and being a good neighbour in general.

I think we've all agreed that actually a lot of the H & S law is actually quite sensible. We all have an issue with the compensation culture. I have a sneaky suspicion that actually very few of these idiot cases come to court, fewer still win and those that do often don't get a lot of compenstion. If you look at a lot of the Daily Wail stories it's all about someone trying to sue for £ 100,000, doesn't mean they have a case. What people need to risk assess is the likelyhood of being sued etc. put that into context and then stop being idiots.

Rant 2 – I've seen enough idiot H & S implementation over the years, every time something is done poorly it dilutes the message on the important stuff. Where I work it's become mandatory to wear protextion footwear. I've asked several times tosee the risk assessment that came to that conclusion. I don't think it exists, we don't have lots of foot crush risks around the place, FLT's maybe but then saftey footwear isn't going to help much. It was just an easy one to implement to look like we were doing something. On the flip side of that we're no where near as good as we should be on general housekeeping, blocked access routes, trip hazards etc. But then that's more difficult to properly implement isn't it.

3rd rant, I do think there are circumstances where someone should be completely absolved from responsibility, particularly when some one enters their land and does something stupid. As long as reasonable steps have been taken, examples of this would include kids getting badly hurt in sub stations and the like where they've scaled a 6 or 10ft metal fence. As long as any part of your property where someone could reasonably be expected to be (i.e. front path where a postman might walk) is safe you shouldn't have to treat the rest of your garden like a roadworks.

Which brings me nicely onto rant 4, RASWA, completely over the top legislation / guidelines for setting out roadworks. So complicated that they often get ignored or worse still badly done making it even more confusing and dangerous. Personally I'd like to see more emphasis on not letting the temporary traffic lights run out of fuel than miles of fencing diverting a footpath when there is another on the other side of the street.

Hey ho off to Greece tomorrow so no doubt I'll get some exposure to the other end of the EU H & S spectrum 😆

There was a local authority that stopped just automatically paying out on claims they had assumed they would lose and employed a good lawyer to contest stuff they were spending less then 10% including legal bills of their previous annual compensation bill. I will find the link. I heard it on radio 4 anyway so it must be true.

Junkyard – perhaps you should have read the other link – from the headteacher that started the myth.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/dec/09/conkers-goggles-myth-health-safety

Even the HSE mythbusters got it wrong by stating one school had done this – they didn't know when they wrote it it was deliberate spoof by that headteacher.