DIY on the wireless

On an American internet station they used to have a series called The Blind Handyman, which basically told people to do stuff if you cannot see. I bet nobody would run such a show here, H/S etc!

Brian

on 23/06/2019, Brian Gaff supposed :

I was recently watching something where they mentioned how H/S has changed and been tightened up over the years. I served my time in those bad old days, where no one much bothered about H/S, you just got with it. I do think H/S has gone to far these days, inventing risks which simply do not exist.

Modern H&S makes you assess the risk and consider means of reducing it if appropriate. In a normal working environment it makes good sense for people who aren't bright enough to see danger.

The consequence of death and injury can outdo the cost of an assessment many times over.

The stupidities come with areas such as a school outing. I recall a LA stopped a school charity walk because there places on the walk where children couldn't be seen from a vantage point.

That's the trouble, when it goes too far.

One that I have seen a lot lately is roadworks, with a lane closure, where the lane is extended way past the roadworks, right up to a junction, to allow occasional work vehicles to rejoin the road without having to merge with traffic - with the consequence that for a year or more at a time, there are huge tailbacks every day, as the junction's capacity has been halved. In one cases, the tailbacks run so far back that they run back to the motorway and are causing standing traffic on the motorway!

SteveW

Fredxx explained on 23/06/2019 :

Exactly. Then there are the sites where they have to wear goggles, yellow jackets and hats all the time, when there is zero risk from anything.

Steve Walker wrote on 23/06/2019 :

Which dramatically increases the risks on the roads, for those trying to use them. So many accidents happen where there is unexpected standing traffic.

I would say the risk assessment was carried out by an incompetent. I see it all too often.

In message <qem5te$rlq$ snipped-for-privacy@dont-email.me, Nick Odell snipped-for-privacy@themusicworkshop.plus.com> writes

Just spent a pleasant hour listening to that. Thank you.

I saw Brian Cox venturing into some ice cave on TV last night. He was wearing all the latest safety get-up. The point of the protective helmet foxed me for a minute but then I thought maybe there was a risk of a drop of melted ice hitting him on the head.

My favourite was an "open plan" lab with metallurgical microscopes round the corner from the fume cupboards (yes I know that is not a good idea). But you were *supposed* to wear eye protection when using the microscopes :-)

Downloaded on phone for bed-time listening. I do love iPlayer.

Absolutely no need for H&S. Too many people anyway. Bringing back asbestos and all the various substances now controlled would reduce the population nicely. And even more to the point, shorten the lives of those working with it, rather than the bosses. A win win situation.

You've done a risk assessment to back up your claims. then? ;-)

I certainly remember visiting a sewage works, where an electrician was connecting a control panel that I had designed, on a settling tank scraper bridge. They insisted he wear a hard hat, despite it getting in his way working in the panel and the panel being the highest point on the site! There was absolutely no way that anything could drop on him and he wasn't walking about where he might bang his head on something. Just a case of no common-sense being used and sticking to a rigid rule where there was a) no possible danger from not doing so and b) it was interfering with his work.

Similarly, on an industrial site, they insisted on safety harnesses for "working at height", despite the scaffold having their feet only 3 feet from the ground as they only needed to gland-off the cables on the top of the panel. There was no way that the harnesses could arrest a fall in that distance, unless they were so taught already that they couldn't move to work!

SteveW

and there was the refurbished theatre in Newcastle where the council's H&S person wanted a safety rail between the stage & the orchestra pit. I production I was stage managing had the council's H&S lady want Romeo to wear a climbing harness when coming out of Juliet's room.

Back at school, one of our technology projects was called (rather uncomfortably) Spirit Level For The Blind. An audible spirit level that buzzed differently at different angles, and was silent when level.

jgh

I once picked up a hire car at 5am that had been delivered to my work place and the keys left at the security gate. The security guards had been told not to release the keys to any hire car until a risk assessment form had been filled in. I duly filled in the form ticking all the boxes for a very high risk (long working day with 400 miles of driving etc.) and handed the form back. The security guard filed the form without looking at it and immediately handed over the keys. There was no comeback and I'll bet no-one ever read the filled in form.

I also once had to fill in a risk assessment for journey that involved a taxi picking me up at home, driving me to the airport, catching a UK internal flight and a taxi the other end taking me to a hotel!

Oh, sometime sonewhere there is aqlways some borde jobsworth doing that.

Like the time I took a PC acroos Erurope, hetting a cernet stamped at every bodredert.

I ended up in copenhagen hacing driven hu germany..but left from

Months later I got a letter in Danish presumably complaining that I had bought a computer in to Denmark, but it had not left.

I sent a photocopy of the exit stamp and heard no more