elf and safety gone mad

Roger,

You havent been able to use a ladder on building sites or anywhere to gain height for ages unless there is no other way to climb, today its mobile scaffolding, podium steps and the like, all need courses and all need a tag system that has to be signed daily by a qualified person to say its been checked and is fit for use. If you have to use a ladder then it has to use the tag system and has to be tied off at the top to something that is fixed, the catch 22 is that you cant climb it to tie it off

I'm a "trained" mobile scaffold erector and my licence only lasts a few years and then we do it again, you cant get onto a construction site without shed loads of courses under your belt and you have to do them if you want to work, fortunately my job pays for it all. You now have to pay for common sense.

Martin P

I went on a course to be 'acquainted' with the construction regs - can't remember the full title (CDM Regs?) - when they came out in the early 90's. Half way through the course the tutor said to us "well, I've been in the safety business for 25 years and I don't know about you but it's my impression that the most important bit of all this is to get the paperwork right. If in doing so an accident is prevented, then that is a bonus". We all agreed!

Also told by a jobsworth 'safety expert' that it was essential to do a Risk Assessment. If there was then an accident then that was alright (really, convince the person the accident has happened to) because something had obviously occurred that hadn't been thought of when the Risk Assessment was done. So now the risk assesment could be re-done with this added knowledge and everything would be wonderful. Yeah - Right. PYA rules!

We, rightly or wrongly, are in the EU where everything is supposed to be harmonised. So you would think all the same H & S rules would apply.  Level playing field and all that.  You would be wrong.  I have seen enough in France and Holland to known that re H & S they abide by a whole lot of less strenuous rules and have a more relaxed way of doing things that would have factory inspectors and the like here have heart attacks, yet life goes on and there would appear to be no accident issues there. But they do use common sense, and are allowed to think for themselves, both of which is largely absent here it would appear!

Chris

Edited By ChrisH on 06/01/2015 19:44:26

As our Westminster politicos are talking of devolving more power to local councils (our representatives!), I expect we can look forward to much more interference in most aspects our lives.

Edited By V8Eng on 06/01/2015 20:00:52

Last two posts have mentioned common sense but I was told, by a guy on my side, that because common sense cannot be defined you cannot use the term.

The case in question was a range of ink mixing machines we used to make. Basically a food mixer on steroids, large motor VDF drive paddle goes into a tub of ink and lathers it up. These had to gain CE to be sold in this country so we contacted the Derby Small Business Bureau for help as we were a member.

Guy comes round to help us, nice guy, very knowledgeable and in no way a jobs worth.

Asked how they worked, showed him and they had a spring cover went on the top of the tub to stop ink splashing.

He asked what stops you lifting the cover and putting your fingers in whilst running. My answer was common sense as the slightest dab of this stuff on your fingers and the missus would be walking round with green drawers for 3 months.

Was told we couldn't use common sense in the handbook as could not be defined.

Then knocked off and went into the house for a cup of coffee, ironically earlier that morning been down to Argos and bought a new kettle as the old one had packed in. So brand new Argos special complete with highly visable CE sticker sat there.

So filled it with cold water, called him to look at this and lifter the lid and stuck my hand in saying "Ouch". Then proceeded to poor said cold water all over by other hand in the sink, saying "ouch" again. then pointed to the CE sticker.

He looked at me, I looked at him, he said "Point taken, so if we change common sense in the handbook proof to "Do not stick fingers in the tub " I think we tick all the boxes and you can have your CE certificate.

Common sense does not exist in America so Mcdonalds warn us on the cup that coffee is hot, I think I knew that before I could read.

Mike

Only if they are quoting the right rules.

Many more people are getting wise to these quasi rules and 3 companies I know have questioned them with the result they have left, never to return so the more this gets out, the better for all.

Read a while ago where a flat roofing company was told they could not go on roofs to repair or relay them without them being side guarded off first. When they pointed out they needed to get up there to guard off they were just ignored. So the owner and his solicitor turned up at a council meeting and basically trashed the meeting trying to get an answer. No answer was forthcoming so his solicitor asked for a list of names so they could take legal action over loss of earnings.

Soon sorted and they had to self train one person to go up, guard off before the rest went up. but no one could find anything in any regs to say this.

I was attending a training course in Masstrict when we all stopped and looked out the window to watch someone standing on the top of a tall step ladder on top of a dozen pallets at the full height extension of a fork lift attaching a cable to the top of a pole. Luckily no one fell but we were all speechless

We had a safety inspection at one company I worked at by a consultant safety company on our behalf. We were criticised for not having a sign warning of a fragile roof on the side of a storage building the height of a tall house. We pointed out that it wasn't necessary as it was 'safe by position', meaning you had to have a very long ladder to reach the roof. No, says safety consultant, if a burglar was on the roof he could fall though and hurt himself, possibly sue the company because we hadn't warned him. But if the burglar was not employed on an illegal activity, he wouldn't be on the roof and therefore wouldn't fall through, therefore if he did it would be all his own fault, was our more common sense reply, but this reply wasn't accepted. Madness.

Chris

Back to gas bottles and the not-always ubiquity of common sense.

Long long ago I was working on the construction of a power station in western Zimbabwe. No elfin safey, no unions, no nuffink. Working on the top level of the main boilers, about 10 storeys high, there was a set of oxy/acet bottles used for general cutting etc on the job. But instead of having the usual crimped on fitting where the hoses joined the regulators, the hoses were simply attached to the flare nut spigots with ordinary jubilee clips like you would use on a motorbike fuel line. Standard operating procedure in Zim apparently.

All well and good until one day one of the clips let a bit of acetylene leak out, and being a construction site there were welding sparks showering down all about. The acetylene caught fire and the flame fired right at the neck of the oxygen bottle. Nobody noticed because the bottles were tucked in out of the way next to a big RSJ.

So eventually the neck or valve of the oxy bottle gave way under the internal pressure plus heat, bottle fell over and shot along the steel decking like a missile at about warp factor 5. Until it went under the handrail and off the edge of the deck, to lodge eventually in the mud 10 storeys below and about a hundred yards from the power station.

Miraculously nobody was hurt. So they hooked up another bottle, with the same jubilee clip on the hose and carried on.

And ladders! That were luxury that were. We had to use cable ladder racking stood on end, if we were lucky. Otherwise we had to make our own by welding bits of pipe together. Often we just clambered about on the Unistrut framework for the cable tray racking, hoping that whoever put it up had tightened the bolts properly.

Sometimes instead of climbing up ladders we came down from above in a Bosun's Chair suspended by two rather thin wire cables attached to a pair of hand-cranked winches. My mate was in one, hanging halfway down a furnace wall consisting of 2" water tubes welded side by side and standing almost the full 10 stories high. Sun came over the yard arm and heated the 50 foot wide panel of water tubes until it "popped" like a piece of car bodywork will do in fierce sun. Except this thing "popped" about six feet or so and shot the Bosun's Chair out into the middle of space. It swung like a pendulum on its wire cables, and then back into the side of the furnace with a hell of a bang. We never could get that bloke or his African offsider to go in the bosun's chair again.

Real life accident reports show that people do sometimes do things completely contrary to 'common sense' - either as a short cut to do the job, as a result of a momentary lapse, or because they simply don't appreciate the hazard.

Displaying warning signs or fitting interlocks etc. is relatively easy - getting people to always behave safely (or at least not blatantly unsafely) is far more challenging.

Just wondering; why should a crimped collar be any more reliable than a "Jubilee" style clip?

Russell.

Jubilee style clip in small sizes doesn't tighten up in a circle. The bit holding the worm is far more rigid so it actually tightens up in a 'D' shape and there are two possible points of leak.

In larger sizes the points are far smaller taken as a percentage of diameter.

This morning on my way to work along the cyclepath between river and allotments one of the streetlights (pathlights) was being worked on with a van and a hole to get at the electric cables. Small sign to divert pedestrians onto matting put on grass beside path. Very thoughtfull. Two very big signs blocking path 10 feet each side of the work area - "No Smoking".

Malaga, 1996 - the Christmas lights were strung from tree to tree, daisy-chained using choc-block connectors and no other means of support! And no earth as far as I could see.

Neil

Edit - should add these were outside the Council's offices!

Edited By Neil Wyatt on 07/01/2015 19:06:46

During a audit by a Loyds register of shipping safety inspector I was told that a method statement should be written in such a way that any person regardless of training or experience should be able to understand it and perform the task required , apparently experience counts for nothing.This left me wondering why I had to spend so much time attending so called training courses . At the time I was part of a small very experienced team installing very large pieces of equipment at major airports .Most of the pieces weighed in excess of 40 tons and due to the length of up to 120 feet required 2 cranes. Tandem lifting is one operation that HS inspectors dislike mainly because if it is not planned very carefully when slewing its easy to get into situation were one or both cranes go out of there safe working zones . We often lifted into very restricted spaces and positioned pieces with a few mm of clearance . We never had a single incident and every job was delivered on time but in the end we would only work at night when all the HS bods were safely tucked up in their cots . All they what is high tech answers for low tech labour and nobody is allowed to thing for themselves . So next time you walk through T5 heathrow look at the link bridges and boarding bridges that take you to the plane and spare a thought for the people who installed them against a barrage of health and safety that made it difficult to work. Mike

Michael,

I dont work with such big equipment but I can relate, I have to write method statements and have also assembled robots in the evening because the two pairs of braces and belts man has gone home.

Martin P

I have a theory on this sort of thing.

In short we have lost our manufacturing base and much of it to China and India it seems.

In no small part was this due to wages here in Britain and possibly the rest of the Western nations. Because if a bloke is willing to work for the price of a bowl of rice aday as opposed to whats needed to support a Western way of life there's just no comparison.

Business in Europe and North America were quick to see the benefits of Chinese and Indian production costs and so moved their production lock stock and barrel. Add to that no health and safety and millions of just begging for work to feed themselves.

Skills in China and India must be growing where as here in the west they are falling rapidly.

On the one hand it's great to be able to buy cheaply. I can't afford a Myford even now. But on the other hand how far will this go? When the money runs out here what do we as a nation to exist? We build very few ships, we only assemble cars which are bought in any volume. The same can be said of the motor cycle industry. Electical goods has also gone. Blah Blah Blah ad infinitum.

Jesse. Now depressed.

Edited By Jesse Hancock 1 on 09/01/2015 10:32:26

You have only to remember that many years ago Egypt Greece and the Romans ruled the world Where are they now? We are going the same way

Roy ( I've often said I'm glad I'm not a youngster any more )

Jesse and Roy, do not get too depressed, we make the best aero engines in the world, Rolls Royce Jaguar and Bentley cars, export thousands of land rover, range rovers, minis and Toyotas, make a lot of Europe's Ford engines, leaders in Pharmaceuticals, DNA research, make most of the chips for the worlds mobile phones, world class engineering consultants building bridges, tunnels high rise buildings everywhere. yes we have lost a lot of metal bashing industries, but we are working smarter now, not harder. There is a big shortage of young engineers so that is one thing we need to sort out, and being more positive about what we can do well could encourage them.

Chris Gunn

There is a rule in use within professions of "reasonable competence".

When faced with a question of competence the question is asked "What would a reasonably competent person / practitioner do" This has nothing to do with experience or training because the same rule is applied accross the board. If a reasonably competent person would not have done something then the view would be taken that it should not have been done. Likewise the converse is true.