Safety going rediculous

[DrZoos]

Funniest example i saw was a former groundsman tried to be an arborisrt...he put on his high vis vest, put out all his cones, put his ear plugs and safety glasses on, then climbed and stood on the verry top of a ladder that had clear markings 4 rungs from the top, reached out with the chainsaw and started cutting the branch he was hanging on to....i think you can guess what happened......

 

So as im realizimg whats unfolding in front of me and unable to get his attention , he realizes at the last moment part of his stupidity.... He is then left dangling by one hand, one foot on the ladder and a running chainsaw hanging from him....

 

All the procedures, policies and ppe wont stop morons inventing new ways to hurt themselves...

 

The same guy got electocuted twice and had to be severely repremanded for doing wheelstands on a full size tractor, mowing up an unsafe embankment...using only the slasher to stop the tractor flipping....

 

 

[M61A1]

Some years ago, the company I was with tried to implement the DuPont Safety system (they gave it up as a failure inside 2 years). One of the American DuPont guys was telling us of the "tragic" death of a colleague who was dismantling a decommissioned DuPont plant. Short story: he did everything right, harnesses, overalls, gloves, goggles etc, but his harness was attached to the heavy piece of plant he had just cut off and pushed over the side. DuPont guy was very upset at our laughter, " why are you laughing.? This is tragic"

 

Yes it was.

 

I don't think anyone can question the value of safe work practices.....but the " if a little bit is good, more must be better" mentality, is a failure.

 

 

[hihosland]

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Spanish truck stop working girls told to wear high viz

 

[dazza 38]

The trouble is with all this safety BS is that people are getting to the stage that they can't or are not allowed to think for themselves.

 

 

[Methusala]

Very unfunny safety story... A few years back we were up at Monto picking up an aircraft. Flew it part of the way back till the ceiling started forcing me down to terrain. I then landed and put it on a trailer and returned home safely. Another aircraft at the same time continued into worsening conditions till the pilot and 5 others died. Safety is all B-- s--t until the grim reaper takes his cut. As I say, you can have it either way but a strong safety culture that is enforced has definite advantages over a macho "let 'er rip" attitude. My 2 bobs worth, Don

 

 

[Gnarly Gnu]

The safety regs are rendered useless when workers can barely communicate in English. That apparently isn't recognized as a problem to safety nerds though, their training course didn't cover it perhaps.

 

 

[Methusala]

It is a continuing symptom of the headlong rush to extinction of our way of life when greedy corporations push legislators to allow imported labour into this country. I lived in the Snowy as a kid and recall that our school classrooms were used at night to teach migrants English. That allowed Australia to get people into this country who would stay and enrich us. The 457 and "free trade deals" done these days can only import low standards of culture and rob us and our children of the benefits of a high standard of living. Don

 

 

[Downunder]

Some years ago, the company I was with tried to implement the DuPont Safety system (they gave it up as a failure inside 2 years).

I remember something about the "DuPont system". I think they had to close their own US (?) plants as they couldn't work to their own (strict) safety system.

 

I got the impression it was just an excuse to move operations to a 3rd world country........not sure......

 

 

[mechfx]

My kid's preschool has an MSDS for DIRT on file....

 

(MSDS : Material Safety Data Sheet)

 

 

[M61A1]

Very unfunny safety story... A few years back we were up at Monto picking up an aircraft. Flew it part of the way back till the ceiling started forcing me down to terrain. I then landed and put it on a trailer and returned home safely. Another aircraft at the same time continued into worsening conditions till the pilot and 5 others died. Safety is all B-- s--t until the grim reaper takes his cut. As I say, you can have it either way but a strong safety culture that is enforced has definite advantages over a macho "let 'er rip" attitude. My 2 bobs worth, Don

I have to ask.....what made you land...the regs, or your own common sense?

 

 

[Bruce]

"Live free or die " .. well its not my original motto but I like it.

 

I hate the way "Safety" is being used as a tool of oppression. Down at the farm, I would love to have one of the hundreds of Newstart recipients in the district help me sometimes, but the cost of all the required safety gear and training makes the idea stupid. ( As does the minimum wage from day one).

 

So Grandpa ( me) has to do it by myself with help from Grandma. Then we have to pay tax to support the young people who can't help us because of safety reasons.

 

I would like to see safety authorities like CASA confined to education and advice. Fat chance huh.

 

 

[pmccarthy]

For a while I worked in mine shafts thousands of feet deep, repairing guides, working with cap lamps only, using oxy gear. If you tied off to the shaft steelwork then you could forget and ring away while on the cage. And vice versa, you could be standing on a bearer and tied off to the cage. So we didn't tie off at all. I was the supervisor, and if someone had fallen I would have been crucified. But there was no other way to do the job, we just moved carefully and very thoughtfully.

 

 

[Yenn]

Bex. Don't know any of them The HQ was Mt Waverley. Chris Yohanson, managing director, Jimmy Lomdahl No 2. That is back in the sixties.

 

 

[dazza 38]

Lets not get over board fellas, most people with a few brain cells knows what is right from wrong and what is potentially dangerous. Dumb people are always going to prove that they are dumb and do something dangerous when something is dangerous, its natures way.

 

 

[Methusala]

"I have to ask.....what made you land...the regs, or your own common sense?"

 

I don't want to cause my friends and relatives to write a post ending in RIP.

 

 

[SDQDI]

"I have to ask.....what made you land...the regs, or your own common sense?"

I don't want to cause my friends and relatives to write a post ending in RIP.

I think the point m6 was making was that it was more likely that you landed because you could see it was getting unsafe, NOT because the conditions were getting closer to illegal.

 

Common sense decisions such as those are getting less and less common as we start to think "if it is legal it is safe"

 

 

[bexrbetter]

a strong safety culture that is enforced has definite advantages over a macho "let 'er rip" attitude.

Contradictory, you merely chose common sense over bravado, the same common sense that is being denied with enforcement.

 

The 457 and "free trade deals" done these days can only import low standards of culture and rob us and our children of the benefits of a high standard of living. Don

Yeah, nah, just not true. What baffles me is anyone over 50 years old posting this sort of stuff can't seem to remember what life was like in the 50's and 60's, I can, and I darn well know how easy I got it and what I got today, relative, thanks to Governments and Corps.

 

That includes by the way, more power to the people who in return just whine and moan about wanting more, talk about giving an inch ...

 

 

[Methusala]

Not contradictory at all. I wear a seat belt. Some choose not to. I'm convinced that seat belts are potential life savers as are legislators who will penalise those who choose not to. The person who is conditioned to wear one, having paid penalties previously, will still be restrained inside his vehicle and statistically will suffer less in a crash. I've seen standards in building construction fall as the real cost of purchasing one has increased dramatically over my 40 years involved in the industry. I think that some things are less costly now but this is largely through tech innovation rather than pointing to the cheap labour scouts in the corporate world. Finance industry is a creeping cancer which prevents the worthwhile innovations being implemented (vis: revelations that the Hawke govt were considering pricing carbon in 1991). Don

 

(Don't mention "More power to the people")

 

 

[Bruce]

Dazza is right about stupid people having more accidents. You could reduce the road toll by more than half if you kept the 10 percent most stupid people off the road. You could do this with a license test which included things like calculating stopping distances.

 

Of course this idea is politically incorrect.

 

 

[turboplanner]

How do you calculate stopping distances?

 

 

[Kiwi303]

Put them in one of those courses where cardboard cutouts run out into the road between cars.

 

Knock one down, no licence.

 

 

[M61A1]

Not contradictory at all. I wear a seat belt. Some choose not to. I'm convinced that seat belts are potential life savers as are legislators who will penalise those who choose not to. The person who is conditioned to wear one, having paid penalties previously, will still be restrained inside his vehicle and statistically will suffer less in a crash. I've seen standards in building construction fall as the real cost of purchasing one has increased dramatically over my 40 years involved in the industry. I think that some things are less costly now but this is largely through tech innovation rather than pointing to the cheap labour scouts in the corporate world. Finance industry is a creeping cancer which prevents the worthwhile innovations being implemented (vis: revelations that the Hawke govt were considering pricing carbon in 1991). Don(Don't mention "More power to the people")

It is contradictory.....forcing stuff onto people doesn't create a safety culture, it creates hatred and lip service. Smart people (and most are smarter than you think) don't want to kill or hurt themselves and will protect themselves voluntarily.

 

I don't see any reason to legislate the wearing of seat belt/harnesses and helmets, wise people will do so, sure make a standard so that they are available, let those who won't use them do as they wish. We still allow people the choice to smoke and drink ( 2 big killers) why not choice here.

 

I think your real cancer ( aside from our unions) is the legal system, everyone does what they do, so they wont get sued. We have lawyers looking to set precedents, and magistrates giving dumb people money for hurting themselves., so managers cover their arxe by being seen to have done something to prevent the lowest common denominator from hurting themselves. Another factor here is HR people and their worthless recruiting processes, once a fool is employed, they are very difficult to get rid of.

 

Dazza is right about stupid people having more accidents. You could reduce the road toll by more than half if you kept the 10 percent most stupid people off the road. You could do this with a license test which included things like calculating stopping distances.Of course this idea is politically incorrect.

The fixation on stopping distance is probably one of the worst things about our driving culture. The whole idea that the default action is to stop is dangerous, in almost every case, a driver could have gone around a hazard but chooses to stop, and subsequently runs into what they were fixated on. No argument with a safe following distance or leaving extra room for heavy vehicles.

 

 

[dazza 38]

I like most people who have been around long enough, assess everything I do when carring out a ' risky' task. Eg- when cutting down or pruning trees. I look at the "what if's" as in what can happen if I do this or that , or how windy is it, will the best option be to use wedges. I used to cut and sell fire wood back in the nineties for extra income so I know my way around chainsaws.

 

My step son bought a house up the road that has been a rental for 19 years, the back yard was heavily over grown with trees. I cut a lot down, pruned a few and left a couple because they are too risky in their position for me to drop. I said to him to get a professional lopper in for those couple.

 

 

[Bruce]

The point is not that stopping distance is important, it is about denying a license to somebody who is so stupid that they can't learn to do a calculation. These are the people who cause most of the road accidents. It's ok by me if they only injured themselves, but they may take somebody else out.

 

Personally, I would like seatbelts to be optional with the condition that the taxpayer didn't pick up the cost if you injured yourself without one.

 

 

[P4D]

Quote from FLYING LESSONS online:

 

"Safety is an outcome not a Strategy"

 

If your strategy is to rely on legal minimums you've already abdicated safety in preference for a strategy.....that might keep you safe in some circumstances, but whats the use of a hard hat underneath a 200 ton weight or safety glasses when they're sweaty fogged up and restrict vision.

 

You can't make it idiot proof, Idiots are too clever.