Health and Safety, how's your H&S game?

[J4CKO]

Are you pretty good with H and S, or do you play fast and loose ?

I realised that the constant H and S stuff at work and maybe age means I am now pretty diligent.

For example, need to chops some wood up, got the old chainsaw working and fettled but decided I am not doing any chopping without full PPE, i,e steel toe caps, face guard, suitable gloves and the chaps, in the past it was trainers, t shirt, safety squint and mum on speed dial as per the T Shirt.

Cant face injuries now, obviously can always happen but determined not to do stupid stuff.

Dont want a bit of wire brush attachment in my eyeball, want to avoid flesh wounds and broken bones.

So, is it "Pah, I sail close to the wind, axle stands are for fannies etc" or "I do it properly to avoid injury and want to avoid explaining to the nice nurse in casualty what a dick I really am as I clutch a margarine tub full of assorted fingers".

So, has it gone mad, or is it for our own good ?

[J4CKO]

Seen two good ones in the last three days,

Saturday, I had a subwoofer that I stuck on eBay as I never use it, it sold pretty much instantly and the buyer was keen to collect ASAP.

He drove the 40 mins over as specified and turned up bang on time, pleasant chap, paid for the sub and we were chatting, and he said he is a truck driver, for a large company whose name you can rearrange from a type of cholesterol. He said he was messaging me whilst driving, which when I suggested that was a st idea and a Wharfedale subwoofer is not worth losing your job for, he said he was in the services, but did admit subsequent replies were whilst driving an articulated lorry ffs.

This morning, getting petrol at the local Tesco, a bloke walking round his van with a fag in his mouth ! Now the mobile phone thing has been largely debunked, the risk is probably fairly low but there are thousands of gallons of very volatile liquid around, people slosh it about, if nothing else maybe defer your smoke until having fuelled up ? Its not a good look.

There is this stupid mentality in certain jobs, building being one and a lot of "professional" drivers, the "Too cool for school" attitude to H and S, and by and large most get away with it, but probably worth paying attention and maybe, if nothing else avoiding losing income from injury, for all the ones that wing it and get away with it, casualty and mortuaries are full with those who didnt.

[J4CKO]

Voldemort said:

I think the H&S zealots have not realised that not only can you not eliminate all risks but that a level of injury/death is socially acceptable.

For example we have -ish 3,500 road fatalities per year. A number we could get down to single figures if we simply banned all motor vehicles. But life would be virtually unlivable - in practical terms - and so we accept the 3,500 deaths as a fair price for having food in the supermarkets, being able to work more than a couple of miles from where you live, transporting sick people to hospital in a hurry, etc.

"H and S Zealots" ?

I am sure some are a bit like that, but by and large, my experience is that they were just folk doing a job and trying to keep you safe.

A bit past is to protect the company, but nobody wants people dying or being maimed.

And the UK road deaths have been under 2000 for a good few years, plus obviously a lot of serious injuries that we tend to dismiss a bit as they arent dead, but if you lose a leg or something, its pretty devastating, and some injuries are litterally a fate worse than death.