Elf and Safety

[Bolter]

That's not down to Health and Safety Regulations, it's down to those interpreting it and applying it.

I'm a Health and Safety manager for 1500 people and the site has a very diverse range of operations. One thing my team fully recognise is that you can't apply a blanket approach and the majority of your solutions are known and practiced by those doing the job. This approach has led to us reducing lost time accidents (>3 days) from 65 per year to 2 per year with a target of zero.

What many companies forget is that what they see as cheap, simple controls are anything but. Providing PPE costs money, is a poor control and has significant ongoing costs that are rarely recognised when specifying it as the primary protection.

Many so called safety experts have never operated on the shop floor and fail to see that if you hire competent people they will know the hazards and appropriate responses to a situation. That is not to say that supervision isn't an important element in ensuring appropriate risk controls are applied.

Lids on coffee cups and wearing hard hats while roofing (unless you swinging roof trusses round) don't feature high in my list of concerns.

Well you would be the first one Ive ever met! I understand the idea behind health and safety, but in practice it "seems" designed to make me earn less money by stopping me doing very normal low risk activities.

For example, if I step out of a plot on a building site without my hard hat on, I can be banned from working there on an instant dismissal, and further banned from working for that firm for life. Despite the fact that people have moved into a few of the houses on the same street, and are free to wander up and down it as they please. Pushing prams, riding bikes etc.

Oh yeah, and I found out the other week, my high vis vest must "by law" (and by that I assume the guy meant health and safety law, not criminal law) have two silver reflective bands running round the midriff and not one. Another days work lost due to a ridiculous ruling. Its honestly like im at school some days.

 

[Tom Allen]

it's the ethos of this country that keeps H&S so firmly fixed in the workplace, we seem to need four people to do a job, three to manage it a one to do it.

Given those six lottery numbers i would be gone in a second, somewhere where i don't have to pay for ten people to make my mind up when i know what i want.

 

[Return of the Silver Fox]

Oh yeah, and I found out the other week, my high vis vest must "by law" (and by that I assume the guy meant health and safety law, not criminal law) have two silver reflective bands running round the midriff and not one. Another days work lost due to a ridiculous ruling. Its honestly like im at school some days.

Well go back and ask him for a days wages as the number of stripes means bugger all! He should have asked you what class the vest was required. Class 1 - low risk to class 3 high hazard. The EN standard is based on percentage of background material against the reflective material. You can't tell by looking and there's plenty of single stripe vests that meet class 2 (which I'm assuming is the standard he will be looking for. Unless your working in low light conditions or at night the advantage of a class 2 or 3 vest over a class 1 is negligable.

Geekiness over with for now

 

[Tom Allen]

why do we need 3 types of hi vis vest, lets just make a bright one and wear the same one.

 

[Tom Allen]

now there's an example of common sense over H&S

 

[Return of the Silver Fox]

it's the ethos of this country that keeps H&S so firmly fixed in the workplace, we seem to need four people to do a job, three to manage it a one to do it.

Given those six lottery numbers i would be gone in a second, somewhere where i don't have to pay for ten people to make my mind up when i know what i want.

Tom,

this is the problem. People employ consultants to give them advice rather than learn it themselves. You end up with a Health and Safety manual with all the bells and whistles and its worth nothing to you. I used to assist the UKPSF with their risk assessment package and I wrote it to allow site owners to carry out their own assessments. It was cheap as chips and avoided them having to fork out hundreds of pounds to a consultant to tell them what they already know.

 

[Tom Allen]

I would love to know how many civil servants there are in government, and how many there really needs to be. I would take a guess and the ratio is probably 4:1

 

[Return of the Silver Fox]

why do we need 3 types of hi vis vest, lets just make a bright one and wear the same one.

Cost, the high vis reflective bit is expensive material. The standard is based on reflection over set distances. Railway work, motorway etc needs good reflection at long distance and there's a cost to that. Might only be 3 or 4 pounds per vest but multiply that by a few and you quickly realise a cheaper option will meet your needs and you don't need the Rolls Royce version

 

[Tom Allen]

And then there's Bolters situation where you need more than one, and the costing goes out the window.

It wouldn't surprise me if you had the super one, with the extra band and extreme hi vis, you would not be allowed to wear it in a standard situation.

 

[Robbo]

...And so John, after reading these posts, it would seem you are not conceding the Health and Safety people have a case to answer and are in no way responsible preferring to deflect the blame toward either the industry or the press?