WTF is up with all this health and safety crap in the UK?

You are Paul-Michel and I claim my £5.

eh?

The only thing that seems to be exempt from H&S in this country are the tubes and trains.

eh?

Equipment overkill. ;)

ah

I make a living providing health and safety advice in the construction industry. After ten years or so of doing the job Its clear to me that it's a good thing; stops people getting hurt (or fucked in the ass as someone else put it earlier). Yes of course there's shitloads of laws and rules to follow, but mainly these are driven by employers wishing to avoid hurting people for legal, financial and moral reasons....net result is generally safer nicer places to be and work. Whats wrong with that? The daily mail is a shocker for fuelling the myths about H & S ( remember bonkers conkers?) and the crappy bullshit stuff is mainly is about risk adverse companies with high profiles reducing chances of getting sued. Having said that, some H & S pro's sometimes seem to come up with bureacratic and impractical solutions where other approaches could wokr better IMO.

I make a living providing health and safety advice in the construction industry. After ten years or so of doing the job Its clear to me that it's a good thing; stops people getting hurt (or fucked in the ass as someone else put it earlier). Yes of course there's shitloads of laws and rules to follow, but mainly these are driven by employers wishing to avoid hurting people for legal, financial and moral reasons....net result is generally safer nicer places to be and work. Whats wrong with that? The daily mail is a shocker for fuelling the myths about H & S ( remember bonkers conkers?) and the crappy bullshit stuff is mainly is about risk adverse companies with high profiles reducing chances of getting sued. Having said that, some H & S pro's sometimes seem to come up with bureacratic and impractical solutions where other approaches could wokr better IMO.

I totally agree that in many cases health and safety is a very good thing and protects lots of people from unnecessary injury, by helping to prevent them from happening in the first place. What does drive me to insanity is what I had written in the first post about being fined by the Edinburgh counsel for having a welcome matt in front of my door because someone might trip on it and hurt themselves! That sort of thing is completely and utterly rediculous, and there should be no place for that sort of policing. It's just stupid.

I also think that people that sue because they slip on a f'ing grape in the supermarket, should be sent to some desert Island to think about what they are encouraging the rest of the "De-evolved" world to take part in.

You know, half the reason for litigation over slips and falls (or malpractice, etc., I was surprised to see that people here don't sue doctors over gross malpractice and negligence) is that a lot of people in the States don't have health insurance. If I fell because of a wet floor that I didn't see, and didn't hurt myself, I wouldn't sue. But if I fell and was out of work for three weeks due to a wrenched shoulder (many of you know that my profession for the last three years is as a massage therapist) then I could end up racking up tons and tons of credit card debt, not to mention medical bills, because I've been uninsured for 6 years now. People sue because otherwise they'd be financially fucked up the ass.

H&S is a very good thing in industries where in the past people have got killed, e.g. mining or dockyards. The problem is where it extends too far.

H&S is a very good thing in industries where in the past people have got killed, e.g. mining or dockyards. The problem is where it extends too far.

Ollie, for once you are stating the fucking obvious!

Have we blamed the Americans yet?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Truth_About_De-Evolution

Are we not men?!

YouTube - This is Devo-lution

We are Devo.
As I implied quit a few posts earlier in this thread.

I make a living providing health and safety advice in the construction industry. After ten years or so of doing the job Its clear to me that it's a good thing; stops people getting hurt (or fucked in the ass as someone else put it earlier). Yes of course there's shitloads of laws and rules to follow, but mainly these are driven by employers wishing to avoid hurting people for legal, financial and moral reasons....net result is generally safer nicer places to be and work. Whats wrong with that? The daily mail is a shocker for fuelling the myths about H & S ( remember bonkers conkers?) and the crappy bullshit stuff is mainly is about risk adverse companies with high profiles reducing chances of getting sued. Having said that, some H & S pro's sometimes seem to come up with bureacratic and impractical solutions where other approaches could wokr better IMO.

but even health and safety in the construction industry is fucked. contractors use it as leverage over subcontractors and vice versa. Example: I had to dig that hole in the picture by myself (the other three liggers jumped in for the photo) in all that kit during the hottest, most humid part of last summer.

Flame retardant boiler suit - gas pipe not going in the ground for another 3 months, I don't think there's any gas in it even now!
Plastic Hard Hat - there was no machinery for over 1km and no structures around and the hole was only 1m deep
Safety Glasses - I was using a shovel and spade, no flying debris

All this kit ended up making me ridiculously hot and sweaty as a bastard which steamed up my glasses constantly which I had to keep taking off to wipe only for them to then get muddy and scratched and impossible to see through. But I still had to wear them until they provided new ones. I'm sure you can see then that all this PPE was actually worse for me.

Because archaeologists are the least favoured subcontractors there is no leeway and any little snipe the contractors can get, they'll take, and it's usually through HSE.

Haha, that is indeed a very good example of H&S gone mad. Hold on, this isn't even H&S--this clearly came from someone who was far too inflexible in their thinking and didn't apply common sense. Proper H&S clearly needs common sense.

^ Sorry for stating the f***ing obvious yet again, Mark. I hope you have your pills ready, I know it must come as a bit of a shock. ;)

Don't apologise, it's a rarity for you....now where are those pills?

Warning: Taking "pills" can lead to unexpected happiness or death if taken without the supervision on a forum member.

Beware of accidental overdoses and unsafe swallowing that can lead to choking.

I can never get the child proof lids off.

Haha, that is indeed a very good example of H&S gone mad. Hold on, this isn't even H&S--this clearly came from someone who was far too inflexible in their thinking and didn't apply common sense. Proper H&S clearly needs common sense.

Trouble is you can't have it both ways; legal protection for workers and then ad-hoc exemptions on the basis of 'common sense', a quality for which there is no real definition. H&S may occasionally throw up absurd examples but remember that these laws had to be fought for to protect workers from greedy and unscrupulous bosses who were willing to put others' lives at risk for their own personal gain and that, in America, under the Reagan and Bush administrations these safe guards were often removed so as to increase 'productivity' and 'competetiveness'; code words for increasing the profits of large private companies and enriching the already rich. The inevitable consequence was a rise in industrial injuries and deaths.
It's also worth noting how long this 'Labour' government has held out against a meaningful law on corporate murder or manslaughter. That H&S is widely seen as a problem, a nuisance or a farce, rather than a flawed but essential protection for ordinary people, is a triumph for the propaganda efforts of the corporate media in Britain and another example of how class war is not just an empty phrase.

I agree with all that, Will, but exercising common sense where full body armour isn't required (still chuckling inside at stevo_com's example) doesn't remove the legal protection. In more dangerous occupations, there would be nothing ridiculous about wearing such protective gear, but there are definitely occasions where such vigilance can be relaxed.

They are laws bought in by the EU. This is why you should have voted BNP last Thursday.

before everyone starts bounding the Europe card around perhaps you should watch this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_-jx5xTutU

I like europe. nice cheese.

Scary. Including the elderley, disabled, unemployed, gypsies etc?

scary? it was having a tough life that made people tough that was the point I was making, people coped---now many are piss weak--hence devolution
HTFU

before everyone starts bounding the Europe card around perhaps you should watch this

YouTube - Stephen Fry kills anti-EU myths - Qi

Oh my word--this web-site (URL given at the end of the video) is an absolute hoot:

http://ec.europa.eu/unitedkingdom/press/euromyths/