Safety going rediculous

[turboplanner]

Mark, I include any indoctrination, safety gear or processes in my quotes. Sure it magnifies the cost of a short job if you only go in once, but your computer/charger system can trip their safety switches and cost them downtime, and the bulk of that training, for regular employees is only done on average once per 5/10 30 years or whatever the turnout is. It guards against the visiting wanker, and I've seen them drive off tearing 240 volt lines out, rewire into lines which were already carrying their maximum, chop a 240 volt cable off by installing a guillotine over it, climb 7 metres up a shaky ladder, with no one stabilising it, then sit on the roof and paint up to and around the high tension wires coming into the factory, and the doozy, operate an excavator under 22,000 volt lines and lift the bucket which triggered off a sound like a stick of gelignite and left him rocking in the excavator for a minute or so with his legs off the floor and arms around his shoulders, cutting off our power for half a day (40 workers), and weakening the 66,000 volt line on the nearest pole which dropped off the insulator a week later and let of a bang like 20 sticks of gelignite and set fire to the pole - 40 people idle for another half day, and a fire truck call out.

 

 

[jakej]

Is 27 years long enough ? Oh .. & that reminds me - young guy (bout 20 year old) asked me if I had a ' ticket' , answer was no - I had about 20,000 hrs on type by then, stopped in construction at approx 30,000 hrs without any accidents - couldn't afford one anyway as I was self employed. No OH&S in those days. You took responsibility for yourself, no one would have considered taking it from you - that's the way I prefer it.

 

It sort of reminds me about the ISO 9000 concept , it was touted as being good for business etc, etc. it may have been good for some, especially big business, but not small ones & just cost money for no real benefit.

 

I refuse to join the cotton wool club.

 

 

[SSCBD]

Here is a problem coming - So when I personally refuel my aircraft as per GA requirements at GA airport with bowser pump its all fun with procedure etc . So my next question is - when do RAA add this to the list of rules in a paddock etc? This will be fun for all ???

 

 

[turboplanner]

We have covered this quite extensively in a previous forum, and some very good ideas came out of it. Can't remember the thread, but maybe search "refuelling"

 

 

[Geoff13]

If you would like to know how to stop a mine safety officer dead in his tracks. When one tried to tell me the correct way to safely unload a container off my truck using my own swinglifter, I asked to see his qualifications to tell me how to operate the machine. It took 24 hours and a night in a motel before he finally worked out that there was no formal qualification to operate the machine. $120.00 per hour for 24 hours and a night in a motel. gotto love going to mine sites.

 

Another one was a 4.5 hour induction to follow a ute into a site and stand 20 metres from my truck whilst a forklift unloaded 2 containers. The funny thing was the ute was driving at mine safe speed of 20 kph. 3 times he had to stop and wait for me because it was faster than I was willing to drive on that particular road. On a busy day I load and unload between 20 and 30 containers and I needed 4.5 hours to tell me how.

 

Much (not all) of the OH&S is profit driven by the safety managers and safety equipment manufacturers and not by Safety itself.

 

 

[Methusala]

My objection to statements made in this thread are twofold. Firstly the statement that PPE is a "choice". It is, in fact, mandatory on all well managed sites. Secondly, the statement that it is "least effective in mitigating risk" is a red herring. PPE is not meant to mitigate risk but to save the person from injury if all other controls fail... and they do enough times to be a significant element in workplace accidents.

 

 

[pmccarthy]

I could tell many stories about how PPE nearly did for me in 45 years of mining. Here is one - my safety glasses fogged up so I didn't see a backfill pipe discharging at head level as I walked into a cut and fill stope. I did two cartwheels to the right and had to be pulled out of the wet fill by two backfill guys. I spent the next drew hours in hospital having my eyes, nose etc flushed out of cement.

 

From then on, I decided whether to wear safety glasses or not, despite the blanket rule.

 

 

[bexrbetter]

Problem with these safety regs is that they are here to stay, the moment anyone removes one and someone hets hurt, as they would of with or without the regs, the person who removed the reg is up for hell.

 

The best you can do is stop it now and add no further.

 

One that bewildered me was last month driving on the Pacific Hwy Nth of Coffs Harbour with all the new roadworks seeing the HiLux utes parked well off the side of the road surrounded by witches hats and 2 triangle chocks front and rear of the tyres - are you kidding me?

 

 

[Happyflyer]

You only have to look at the overkill of traffic control in Australia compared to comparable countries to see what happens when the OH&S departments get out of control. Of course OH&S is important, but in Australia, once good OHS had been achieved, the safety departments had to justify their continuing existence and expansion by more and more regulation. Unions in some industries use safety as an excuse to get what they want from the bosses and government. We are drowning ourselves in red tape, bureaucracy and OH&S and our pollies are too busy with their snouts in the trough to do anything about it. We live in a wonderful country but it's a shame we can't keep the good and free ourselves of some of what's not good.

 

 

[bexrbetter]

I have been sitting back here watching the comments and pontifications....its very bemusing to be honest. How many on this particular thread have actually worked on construction sites for any length of time...or in a process industrial line or a mine site, driven trucks or high voltage electrical distribution sites or infrastructure and many of the other industries that require OH&S.

Most of my days have been running my own businesses, mechanical workshops mostly with sidelines.

 

Other times;

 

Tilemans Dandenong, Height work specialising in the repair and maintenance of industrial chimney flues.

 

Mitchell's Drilling Brisbane, Exploration rig drilling into coal seams for cores looking for gas.

 

Volvo/Mack Trucks Brisbane, Specialty vehicle construction and production line issues.

 

B&R Enclosures Brisbane, Operator and maintenace of large sheetmetal automated punch and folding machines.

 

And of course my time in Chinese factories with a lot less OH&S, but there none ever the less.

 

I've seen both sides of the fence, there is too much OH&S and not just from a cost POV, it's dumbing down Australian workers. Find a idiot proof OH&S system just leads to bigger idiots.

 

 

[Phil Perry]

Pity they can't broadcast warning SMS's to all mobiles within 2 km. Then those idiots too busy playing with their mobiles might get the message.

I was at a $2+ store this afternoon picking up some DVD sleeves, and noted the store sold orange hi-viz vests and yellow vests with reflective tape.

I was at a H + S exhibition last year where I saw some ( we call them ) HI-VIZ jackets and vests which had embedded flashing LEDs on all sides,. . .powered by a tiny battery . . . seen similar ones worn by cyclists at night,. . .I have no issue with these, wish they'd been available when I was knocked off my pushbike by some half blind twot driver whilst delivering early morning papers in the 1950s. . . probably won't be long before the local authority workers adopt these, . . .here comes another increase in council tax.

 

. . .

 

 

[dazza 38]

At the previous circus we had toolboxes every morning. We had hazards hunts, safety observations and safety moments where we had to give examples of when we saw or did something which was not entirely done safely . Then they brought in Body activation where everybody gets to stretch and muck around after tool box.

 

I was like of course, are you farking kiddling me ? When does any actual work get done?

 

 

[kgwilson]

I agree with the sentiments of most here. Common Sense and Personal responsibility have gone out the window. I reckon so long as you sign a document stating that you will be personally responsible for your own safety you should not have to wade through all the H&S BS. This means that if you are at some building site or whatever & something doesn't look right to you, don't do it. If you need to enter a building & sign a waver then why do you need a 5 hour induction to walk up the stairs.

 

Of course this will never happen as the H&S industry is now far too ingrained & making too much money for common sense to prevail again.

 

 

[turboplanner]

I agree with the sentiments of most here. Common Sense and Personal responsibility have gone out the window. I reckon so long as you sign a document stating that you will be personally responsible for your own safety you should not have to wade through all the H&S BS. This means that if you are at some building site or whatever & something doesn't look right to you, don't do it. If you need to enter a building & sign a waver then why do you need a 5 hour induction to walk up the stairs.

Of course this will never happen as the H&S industry is now far too ingrained & making too much money for common sense to prevail again.

That's the way it used to be, but it never worked - the injuries and bodies just stacked up more and more. Many of us signed those forms without a thought, and many went on to do what they did at home; how you could cut your toe off at a local hall working bee mowing a lawn on flat ground I don't know, but I know someone that did. How you would managed to get your thumb between the top of a jack and a slipping double decker bus, I don't know, but someone I know did.

 

In fact how many of us have signed out at a flying school and ever read the contents of the attached pages, if after years, they were even still attached.

 

 

[Old Koreelah]

...add to that the pages of fine-print legalese above the "I agree" button. It's designed to be near impossible for us to read, much less understand. We buy just about everything on trust.

 

 

[M61A1]

If all those "lost count" accidents exist there'll be statistical figures on them, otherwise it's just puffery.

Here's the first one...

 

http://acrs.org.au/files/papers/arsc/2015/DebnathA%20127%20Worker%20views%20on%20safety%20at%20roadworks.pdf

 

Not exactly what I was looking for, but it does suggest that all your Hi-Viz, flashing lights and beepers just become white noise, and that there are elevated number of crashes at worksites.

 

 

[M61A1]

That's the way it used to be, but it never worked - the injuries and bodies just stacked up more and more. Many of us signed those forms without a thought, and many went on to do what they did at home; how you could cut your toe off at a local hall working bee mowing a lawn on flat ground I don't know, but I know someone that did. How you would managed to get your thumb between the top of a jack and a slipping double decker bus, I don't know, but someone I know did..

What didn't work? Sounds to me like Mr Darwin's theory was working just fine.

 

 

[old man emu]

Just came in from a visit with my grandson to the kids' playground next-door. Climbing platform with slippery-dip - deck height above 2 metres. Stair to climb up to platform - risers more than 150mm high; rungs only, nothing to prevent a child passing through the gap between rungs; plus some other ways of climbing up and down to the platform. At least the swing he used had a safety chain, and I know the rubber sheet seat is in good order because it was replaced a few months ago after I reported it broken.

 

Still, not one safety warning sign within co-ee.

 

OME

 

 

[Yenn]

Bex. So you worked for Tilemans. I spent ten years with them and they had a very good safety record. 2 fatalities in that time, One was a man I refused to take on my first supervisory job as a leading hand, the other a wild man. We were building chimneys. One in Melbourne I had the chief inspector of scaffolding on my back every day, until a scaffold in melbourne collapsed in the street. I never head from him again.

 

My beef with WH&S is that it has made people think work sites are safe and they don't actively look for danger.

 

 

[bexrbetter]

Bex. So you worked for Tilemans. I spent ten years with them and they had a very good safety record. 2 fatalities in that time,

Yup, Richard the Dutchman was my Bro in Law and Dallas, also Bro in Law to Richard a good friend. Geoff was the Foreman. Big Norm and the lazy old bastard Peter and a few Kiwis. I only know of one fatality, a guy in Indo or somewhere caught his noggin on something and was dazed and fell down through the scaffolding.

 

I was mainly at Fairfeild Infectious Diseases Hospital building the exo-skeleton around the old brick chimney. I gave it up at the Nth Melbourne site doing the slip form job because of all the Union crap.

 

 

[Happyflyer]

Australian mining company takes over third world mine and brings new OH&S standards.

 

 

[SSCBD]

Happy Flyer - you forgot to say - And then went bankrupt!

 

 

[Birdseye]

My objection to statements made in this thread are twofold. Firstly the statement that PPE is a "choice". It is, in fact, mandatory on all well managed sites. Secondly, the statement that it is "least effective in mitigating risk" is a red herring. PPE is not meant to mitigate risk but to save the person from injury if all other controls fail... and they do enough times to be a significant element in workplace accidents.

Just how many times do you have to be told that your interpretation is incorrect. You have a fundamental misunderstanding of risk management, perhaps you should get a job with CASA?

 

 

[Methusala]

And the cow jumped over the Moon! Pull the other one. Happy new year, Don

 

 

[Russ]

Mate works as a driver for a large transport co.......every driver is issued a largish o/nite type bag, they must carry at all times.........contains,

 

hardhat..hiviz vest..first aid kit.. raincoat..safety specs..ear plugs..plus 2..3 other things i can't recall, ..........they drive trucks, they do 3 days induction.....and every week they sign off a "toolbox" sheet about some bullsh!t topic.

 

Kids, at school, are discouraged from "risky" activities, they are wrapped in cotton wool more and more. Kids run / ride / walk, straight out onto pedestrian crossings, knowing they can demand any vehicle at any distance..........TO STOP. Might just be the one vehicle approaching the crossing, but kids now won't wait, let the vehicle pass, before the kids cross the road. The buggers ride their bicycles along the footpath, then cool as pull straight out onto the ped crossings. We have created "school zones" lower speed limits that's ok, but it's also embedding further disregard into the kids for their own self management / awareness etc.

 

Fast forward 10yrs ......the mind just boggles.