Reported a van driver who was on the phone

Still can’t see how it is safer to reverse in.

Stats can be made to confirm all sorts of arguments.

Big supermarkets, nearly everyone parks nose in to load the boot with the stuff they have bought, I don’t recall seeing any accidents when I shop, but there must be some sort of stats that the big firms use to convince each you that parking nose in is safer in this case.

I just thought, and still do, that it was someone high up in the leadership structure who wanted to make a statement.

They did seem very hung up on low risk level politically correct safety issues.

At clocking off time it was like a Grand Prix start line with all the cars lined up in the same direction. The reduced awareness by a lot of people and their desire to leave rapidly was actually encouraged by facing the right way out.

When there was random parking, the driver awareness was actually higher, and less of a Grand Prix start.

No problem, glad I’m retired and away from the politically correct safety stuff.

Big supermarkets, nearly everyone parks nose in to load the boot with the stuff they have bought, I don’t recall seeing any accidents when I shop, but there must be some sort of stats that the big firms use to convince each you that parking nose in is safer in this case.

I’ve never been told to park nose in at a supermarket, it’s a free for all.

The reason they don’t force you is the same reason air planes don’t have 4 point harnesses despite the fact there’s a slim chance it could save lives (and wouldn’t cost much to implement). No company in their right minds want’s to give the impression of being less safe!

Easyjet – pahhh, they’re so unsafe they have to have 4 point harnesses.

Waitrose – pahhh, there car parks are so bad you have to reverse park.

if you really want to bring it to Chubb’s attention, just bung it on twitter. Add in a couple of police forces and tabloid newspapers. The latter two probably won’t do anything, but it grabs attention.

I’ve had a reply asking where and when the incident happened. It look like the original contact has been around the company a bit.

I presume you’ve not bothered to read several slightly different but all perfectly clear explanations? I haven’t even worked anywhere that does it and park nose in at the supermarket, yet it seems obvious to me (if supermarkets provided space for loading behind parking places I’d certainly reverse park instead).

Big supermarkets, nearly everyone parks nose in to load the boot with the stuff they have bought, I don’t recall seeing any accidents when I shop, but there must be some sort of stats that the big firms use to convince each you that parking nose in is safer in this case.

Maybe not accidents, but near miss?
Person walking across the back of a moving (reversing) car
Kids running around
Cars driving down lanes looking for spaces not where they are going

There are loads of potential accidents / near miss that can happen when reversing as (most people anyway) cant easily look in all directions when trying to look over their shoulder, add to that bigger blind spots looking out the back of even a normal car.

Businesses who can influence how their staff park on their property then realise its very easy to reduce this risk for no detriment just by making everyone reverse park so that when they drive away they will start with a better chance of spotting other car-park users. There is obviously a risk in the reverse parking itself, but its much less than a restricted view reverse out of a space.

Big supermarkets, nearly everyone parks nose in to load the boot with the stuff they have bought, I don’t recall seeing any accidents when I shop

Really? I see loads of near-misses in car parks.

“UK drivers are involved in 1,400 car park prangs every day”

— UK drivers pay out £716m a year for car park prangs (ThisIsMoney, Nov 2014)

Over a third (35%) have had their car pranged at least once, while almost as many (31%) have experienced multiple occurrences: of the latter, 28% say they have had three lots of damage and nearly a quarter (23%) have had five incidences.

The most common location for a car to be damaged is the supermarket car park – unsurprising for anyone who has seen the cluelessness of the average British shopping driver on a weekly basis – with almost a half of motorists (48%) naming it as the scene of the crime.
..
9 top tips to avoid damage when parking

1. Ensure that you park centrally in the space, within the white lines and as straight as possible.

2. Reverse into parking spaces – it gives you greater control and it will be easier to get out of the space safely.
…

— Two-thirds of drivers say their vehicles have been damaged in car parks (Express, Nov 2016)

@aracer – if parking spaces were angled, think herring-bone, then parking would be simpler. The triangle at the back of the parking space would allow space for loading, you’d need a walkway of sorts behind the cars to allow segregated access. Setting off is then a simple matter of filtering in to the flow of traffic.

@GrahamS – I wonder how long it will be before insurance companies reduce or refuse payout if you park nose-in? (if they don’t already)

Big supermarkets, nearly everyone parks nose in to load the boot with the stuff they have bought, I don’t recall seeing any accidents when I shop

Get a job collecting trollies in a supermarket car park then.

When I worked in Safeway when I was at school I witnessed hundreds of low speed minor bumps, virtually all caused by people reversing. Even got hit by a few whilst pushing trolleys.

Sure, the trouble it seems land is more expensive than accidents.

I wonder just how many parking spaces they’d lose in a typical car park?

Car parks in America are amazing, I wish the helf and safety peeps would take over and put them like they are over there. I spent a good 5 minutes wriggling out of the little pay and display car park by the rail museum in york on monday, never thought to reverse in. There were about 20 spaces on the plot, a similar sized carpark I parked in in Beverly hills had about 7. All diagonal, just down the one side.

I suppose I must be the old dinosaur in the room, yep, I’ve read the responses and listened to the mantra put out by the last employer.
Well is was more of a dictator decision actually, it was even a disaplinary issue…….

However, the Grand Prix start at clocking off time was definitely more of a risk, but I”lol except that I am in the minority here.

As I said, I was a qualified risk assessor, and there were much greater risk areas other than parking the car in the car park.

I wonder just how many parking spaces they’d lose in a typical car park?

The other problem would be that unless you combined it with enforcement of reverse parking, you get people driving up the lanes and straight in on the opposite side.

As I said, I was a qualified risk assessor, and there were much greater risk areas other than parking the car in the car park.

As a risk assessor im sure you also know that you dont not act just because there are bigger risk elsewhere, especially when its a no cost action.

Im sure peoples driving at leaving time was a risk, but with them all facing forwards at least anyone walking to their car was visible to those rushing to leave.

Being a qualified risk assessor you did a risk assessment of both ways of parking then?

How can I put this: do you recall seeing any accidents in the “Grand Prix start”?

The reverse parking in particular was pure non sense. Nobody can give a satisfactory answer as to how it is safer.

I always understood that it was a busyness issue:

* Everyone arrives for work at slightly different times, meaning quiet car parks when arriving.

* Everyone leaves work at about the same time, meaning the car park’s busier.

Always been a bit suspicious of the Man from Del Monte if I’m honest.

So am I. He is my father in law. Not the actor, the real buyer.

Phone while driving – just no.

Re all the other risk stuff. I think it’s poor communication mainly, not over zealousness. Having said that, there is a self justification in having MOAR rules and MOAR visible controls than the next company or colleague. For some this has overridden the safety in simplicity approach.
We also have many in the workplace who are both risk averse and lack risk judgement skills. This is why employers have a duty of care – because you need to hold the hand of numpty over there all the time. The van driver OP saw is an example.
Finally we also have the confusion of what is health and safety with concerns over liability. Often when people introduce controls, it is our of fear of liability.

I suppose I must be the old dinosaur in the room…
However, the Grand Prix start at clocking off time was definitely more of a risk

Maybe just different working patterns?
I’ve never worked anywhere that everybody clocks off at the same time, usually they just slowly drift away over the last few hours.

I’m fine with being in the minority point of view.

But they did put a traffic bump in at the exit to stem the follow of traffic out of the car park.

No accidents with free for all parking.

But we did have one accident due to the reverse parking, a lot of folk would park the rear of their car ( wheels) right up to the kerb.

There was a pedestrian path behind the kerb, a couple of people walked into the car protruding onto the path.

I prefer to let Darwins theory of natural selection to take its due course sometimes 🙂

DinoDen signing off,

Re. Phone use whilst driving…

I’ve been touring around Italy and Sicily for the past three weeks. It seems that overtaking on the brow of a hill with a blind bend across double white lines whilst texting is no worse than ignoring every speed limit.

It’s been my experience over the years that people who have a problem with “H&S” don’t tend to work in particularly hazardous industries. Those of us who do, and I know there are quite a few on here, tend to have a different approach.

A for it being a bit of an arse covering exercise, well if I ever have to face a judge to answer for why someone has been killed I’d quite like my arse well and truly covered thank you very much. I also want to be able to sleep at night.

I said I’d leave it, but you don’t know anything about me or my work history.

Arse covering is not risk assessment…

Served an apprenticeship in a shipyard in the 70’s, had my best friend killed in a workplace accident in a alumina rolling plant.

The last place of employment was relatively dangerous with some really high risk areas.

The car park wasn’t one of them, but it was to the higher echelons of the organisation.

Qualified risk assessor amongst other senior roles.

Hey ho.

One of my mates has quite a senior post in a large pharmaceutical company. Whilst out on the road he saw one of their drivers smoking in a works van, the driver didn’t have a job the next day!

Did you have a risk assessment for walking? 😉

How do I get myself risk assessor qualified?

Last company I worked for introduced a few safety measures while I was there, most of them have stuck with me…

1) reverse into parking bays. After someone was knocked off their moped by someone reversing out of a space
2) no phone calls while driving, hands free or otherwise. Disciplinary offence if caught out
3) no walking while on a mobile phone. While I was on my redundancy notice, one of the production managers came into the office while I was on the mobile talking to my soon-to-be agency. I left the room. He followed me, telling me off about walking while on the mobile. I pointed out to him that if he hadn’t been chasing me to tell me off, I would not have been walking with the mobile…

sitting in the local trade centre car park bays facing each other with a roadway between then, toolstation , paint shop and a few others one sifde , Screwfix and plumbers merchants other side, number of vans and cars drive into bays and then reverse, sometimes both at same time, all while we are drinking free soup courtesy of toolstation, always reverse park you get to see the near mises better.

As much as driving with a mobile in hand – young ladies and van drivers I’m particularly looking at you – raises my blood pressure, I’m not sure it’s any less safe than hands free, attention is generally the issue not control

The last place of employment was relatively dangerous with some really high risk areas.

The car park wasn’t one of them, but it was to the higher echelons of the organisation.

Qualified risk assessor amongst other senior roles.
OK, so did they implement stuff in the other areas?
As said a 5 minute breifing and email can reduce the risk in the car park for the entire workforce. As part of a wider H&S Culture it should be expected that all of these things are looked at peoperly.

I did quite a few for trials activities at other locations and always made sure to include driving (it was invariably by far the highest risk activity). I suspect you could make an argument for stopping any work activity which involved driving as the residual risk was still too high – but then that would clearly also include commuting (not that that was ever risk assessed) and I doubt even the H&S complainers would suggest that was sensible.

Do you mean driving as an actual part of the job?
If so, not only would an enormous number of people be out of jobs, including me, but the economy would tank overnight; there would be nobody to transport anything, including accident victims.

Still can’t see how it is safer to reverse in.

😯

Stats can be made to confirm all sorts of arguments.

And common bloody sense can tell you when you’re just being obtuse because you know you’re arguing on a false premise.
Christ, the Highway Code says it’s safer to reverse park your car onto your drive, and not reverse into the road, for the very, almost embarrassingly obvious reason that you can’t see anything coming up or down the road until almost the entire length of the vehicle is protruding into the road!
It really shouldn’t be necessary to have to point this out! 🙄
http://www.highwaycodeuk.co.uk/using-the-road—reversing-200-to-203.html
https://www.askthe.police.uk/content/Q390.htm

I did, though I was thinking at the time more about the sort of thing I did/do which was driving from one workplace to another rather than driving being more inherently part of the job. I stand by my comments, but agree with you – the residual risk of driving is incredibly high, yet it’s clearly not something which is feasible to stop people doing (it’s a bit whataboutery, but I always think risks of other activities should be compared to one we do nonchalantly every day, especially when people suggest we should stop doing them).

I do still think it is absurd that the HSE show no interest at all in people being killed on the roads by other people who are working as part of an industry – especially when the same people have to abide by strict rules when they are on a specific site where there are no members of the public, but not on public roads.

Never one to let my prejudices get in the way , on reflection and listening to some of the responses on here, yes, it probably is safer to reverse park.

I think I may have let the argument become clouded by the last employer not really taking serious h&s isuues on board.

As opposed to the more visible low risk stuff.

Humble pie has now been eaten for breakfast.

Drive something like this then you can flout the reverse parking rule claiming its safer.

Regarding the question about being a qualified risk assessor.

We had a consultant visit us to provide training for a morning a week for six weeks.

Classroom and shopfloor based.

We also had to submit a report on three selected areas of risk within the workplace.

He then marked / assessed the reports to see if we understood the issues whilst cross checking against industry safety standards.

We all enjoyed the course, and it did open our eyes to the world of H&S. he kept stressing that the risk assessments were not an arse covering exercise, and that they should be shared and communicated to the shopfloor employees.

I used to make presentations at the safety briefings about the individual risk assessments, explaining that they were not set in stone, and they needed individuals input to review and update any changes in working practices.

The shopfloor employees ( where most of the higher risk based activities were) were genuinely interested in these briefing sessions. Sadly stopped by the plant manager, who openly said they were boring………
The team of risk assessor did genuinely feel that they were trying to make the place safer, since I left the whole system has just disintegrated as there is a culture of fear. But that’s another workplace thread……

Mods, mods – I don’t think this sort of thing is allowed on here.

Interesting about the risk assessment training – I’m sure I never had anything like that, I don’t think even an online course. Though TBH most of it is common sense in the correct sense of that phrase. I can’t recall even getting any training when I became local H&S rep (though that job mostly consisted of getting a load of circulars to ignore every day).

Going back to the original OP thread about people driving on their mobile.

If we can’t alter people’s behaviour whilst driving and not using say a hands free phone ( which again is a little risky in my opinion).

Then it’s time the government and motor manufacturers got together to find a way to prevent the phone from working whilst being used in a car.

I’m not convinced handsfree is all that safe due to the distraction etc.

This was one of the approaches I tried in the workplace when we couldn’t modify people’s behaviour.

Time to see I feel the government and motor manufacturers are serious I think.

The use of mobiles whilst driving is pretty widespread now.

Whilst I agree with your comments re driving hands free making phones not work at all in a car wouldn’t be good idea. Passengers can have many reasons to want or need to use their phones. To use alcohol as an analogy drunk drivers are unacceptable but drunk passengers are fine.

I think that when I’ve backed into a parking space, if a driver leaves from beside my car they get a better view over my bonnet. So they might be less likely to be shunted into my car in a crunch. So it’s in my interest, and it’s being considerate.

The late Mrs sog knew of a manager who phoned into her office and went straight on at a bend, into a tree. She did not survive. You can imagine the effect on the receptionist who was taking the call.

I think a lot of people on here don’t understand that a risk is the product up of 2 components; likelihood x severity.

The reality is that why reversing into a space may reduce the likelihood of an accident, the severity of a car park speed accident is is very low 99% of a time and rarely involves human injury. Particularly in a workplace car park with few pedestrians and no children.

It’s petty H&S BS like this that detracts from the real goal of H&S management.