Man who had not eaten or drunk for hours - crashes train !

[del mar]

Would you believe such a thing !

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3750195/Mu...

And yes of course people who have just eaten can have crashes.

I get a bit twisty if I don't have my sandwich at 1pm !

[del mar]

battered said:

Absolutely this. If I skip breakfast tomorrow then by 12 I'm 16 hours without food. The horrors! I'll be collapsing in the factory!

Er, no.

The way that you deal with this is that you assess all your staff capabilities just as you do for (say) a pregnant woman. You have the discussion that goes "does anything get in the way of you doing your job?" and that opens to door to the dialogue. If you have people who are very old or young or fat or thin, or who fast for whatever reason (religion, sport, dieting) or who are sleep deprived (children, sports training, obligation to piss it up and shag women half their age every weekend) then you allow them to say and to agree a workaround. This could be light duties, shorter hours, days off unpaid, whatever. If they work shifts this is part of it. If they then keel over (and there is no evidence here to say that this was a factor in this case, only a load of "snanstereason dunnit?" BS from on here) then it's possibly a disciplinary matter. You haven't discriminated against this person on the grounds of their religious beliefs/pregnancy/obesity/anorexia/anything else, you have talked to them about the job demands and how it fits in with the rest of their life, you have allowed them the opportunity to ask for an accommodation, they have not done so and they have fallen down (perhaps literally) on the job, putting themselves and others at risk. What else are you to do as an employer? This is the way to have a proper adult conversation about it without concentrating on race, religion or anything else. It also means that you get away from the casual assumption that the man having a bit of a kip, getting up in the night, eating, then kipping 7 hours and coming to work, was a factor in having an accident, without any evidence to support this. In fact I'm going to do something similar tonight, I had a snooze earlier, dinner about 8, is anyone stopping me getting in the car about 7 because I'll be a dreadful hazard to shipping? No, I thought not.

Now with that in mind I'm off to get my beauty sleep.

That sounds wonderful in practice, but requires people to admit that they might not be at full capacity - not always easy to do.

I would be surprised if you could get a Muslim to come to the office and explain that they might not be as sharp as normal due to fasting.

[del mar]

janesmith1950 said:

I would imagine one solution would be to place those strictly observing Ramadan on alternate duties whilst they're fasting. Simply banning devout Muslims from being train drivers on the basis of one festival during the year, which may or may not fall at a time when the daylight hours are long, would seem an overreaction.

You can do my shifts as well as yours !

Thank you

[del mar]

One of the issues with legislation to protect people / groups employment rights are that it works against the very people it is supposed to help.

The idea of giving women all manner of rights during and following pregnancy is probably a good thing but it makes certain ages virtually unemployable. No small business in its right mind would employ a woman between 28 and 34. We as a large business find it a hassle, you just don't have people running at 20% capacity waiting to take up the slack.

[del mar]

John D. said:

Sheets Tabuer said:

Are people that affected by not eating, I can go for days without food and not notice any difference at all, certainly no dizziness or anything.

I did work in an airport once and we were putting in the hours and a guy I worked with who had not eaten by 9pm walked off the job because he said he couldn't concentrate and was feeling dizzy, He left us right in the st doing the SAN upgrade. I called bullst but wonder if there is something in it.

I get hangry after about 3hrs

It most definitely is a factor. As someone who regularly rides such trains and was directly effected by this crash (it shut Paddington adding 4hrs and £30 to my journey home that evening) I think it needs to be looked at. It's recommended not to operate machinery when on certain medication because of the effect on concentration (for ones own safety, let alone tens of passengers). I fail to see how this is any different.

As bhstewie pointed out; crashes happen without people being sleep and food deprived. So why knowingly introduce another risk factor to the scenario?

It is not just one late night and a hang over though, it is a month of the same routine.

It has been a long time since I could do two night in a row out on the "lash" - try it for a month !