maybe this rog’s new username. sounds like a rog trick.
jessicas dad:
maybe this rog’s new username. sounds like a rog trick.
This guy was working.
Do you see where you are going wrong with this theory? 
Harry Monk:
Yes, this is true, nearly all H&S is about the mitigation of litigation. If there is an accident, a company can defend a claim if it can prove that it has taken all reasonable measures to minimise the risk of accidents, even if the measures do not actually make anything safer. Simply the fact that some stuffed shirt was paid to dream these rules up is a good defence.
In our case, it’s not the fear of litigation that provides the incentive to take H+S seriously, but rather the fear of prosecution!
Like most companies, we have extensive insurance policies covering both Public and Employer liabilities. To be honest, these insurance policies cost pennies in the great scheme of things (our public liability insurance costs less each year than the vending contract for the coca-cola dispenser in the canteen!) but would pick up the majority of the legal and compensation bill for any litigation claim resulting from an accident, regardless of whether we could have prevented it.
Unfortunately the insurance policy won’t prevent myself, or the other directors or accountable managers from being prosecuted by the HSE, and very possibly imprisoned for failing to take reasonable steps to prevent an accident occuring.
Financial loss I can deal with, losing my liberty however is not worth the risk regardless of how pointless some of the rules and procedures seem, and for the record I think a vast majority of them are pointless!
I can’t see the point of putting flashing beacons on in quarries; Is a yellow 35tonne dumptruck not visible enough? And why are rotating beacons frowned on inplace of the lightbar type?
We’ve got a guy who works for us a bit like the OP; Within a few weeks he was coming up with H&S ideas which now stop us getting in the back of our tippers to clean them if we don’t have “adequate access platform”…
To the OP, I do agency like you. You are agency therefore temporary, disposable and might as well not exist.
Cover your @rse, play by their rules (however [zb] stupid/pointless/dangerous 
), do the job to the best of your ability, try to stay anonymous, switch off once you’ve handed over the keys and get a life 
Gogan:
Harry Monk:
Yes, this is true, nearly all H&S is about the mitigation of litigation. If there is an accident, a company can defend a claim if it can prove that it has taken all reasonable measures to minimise the risk of accidents, even if the measures do not actually make anything safer. Simply the fact that some stuffed shirt was paid to dream these rules up is a good defence.In our case, it’s not the fear of litigation that provides the incentive to take H+S seriously, but rather the fear of prosecution!
Like most companies, we have extensive insurance policies covering both Public and Employer liabilities. To be honest, these insurance policies cost pennies in the great scheme of things (our public liability insurance costs less each year than the vending contract for the coca-cola dispenser in the canteen!) but would pick up the majority of the legal and compensation bill for any litigation claim resulting from an accident, regardless of whether we could have prevented it.
Unfortunately the insurance policy won’t prevent myself, or the other directors or accountable managers from being prosecuted by the HSE, and very possibly imprisoned for failing to take reasonable steps to prevent an accident occuring.
Financial loss I can deal with, losing my liberty however is not worth the risk regardless of how pointless some of the rules and procedures seem, and for the record I think a vast majority of them are pointless!
You do make a very valid point Gogan, and not for the first time on this thread I might add.
However, I do wonder what the response will be when everyone wears their PPE, and observes even the most banal of H&S directives to the letter, as the logical result is diminished productivity and eventual commercial standstill, for fear that someone will do something, anything, that might harm another person, in the context of commercial operations. And I might add, contractors will only enter commercial premises once they have been indemnified and insured against potential prosecution.
We laugh at the example of wearing a hard hat in a field, but blind observance of the “rules” doesn’t necessarily result a totally accident free work place. The law of diminishing returns is bound to kick in when everyone wears luminous workwear, making them actually blend into their surroundings, rather than stand out.
You could argue that the objective is to minimise the risk, but that will not ultimately stop you from being prosecuted by an increasingly draconian H&S executive.
Taken to its logical conclusion, an HGV driver for example, will no doubt soon be able to sue his employers, should he be injured in an accident involving him driving into a tree, or a ditch at the side of the road. (Or any other potential hazard for that matter.) After all, given his employers duty of care to their workforce, they should risk assess every ditch and tree on their driver’s routes, and either take action to remove the obstruction or minimise the risk of an accident… possibly by instructing their driver to travel past said hazards at 5mph or below. And even at that speed, as we read about in the papers these days, whiplash can still be the cause a massive claim for compensation.
In the final analysis, there’s only so much you can do to cover your backside.
To be honest, I don’t think that hazard flashers on / off would matter enough to me to make a stand on Health & Safety grounds, especially if it was a yard I would be unlikely to be visiting frequently,
BUT:
If a driver has a genuine H&S concern, whether s/he is permanent or agency, then s/he has a right and legal obligation under the legislation, to raise it.
It is ILLEGAL to sack someone for raising a H&S concern, although of course, a customer can ask an agency not to send a particular driver back without giving a reason.
I only know that if someone flagged up an issue that would otherwise have injured or possibly killed me, I would just be grateful.
I am a firm believer of getting on with the job, but there is still am unacceptably high number of drivers killed or injured each year, so perhaps we should start to value ourselves just a little more…
EastAnglianTrucker:
In the final analysis, there’s only so much you can do to cover your backside.
This might prove to be unpopular, but we have actually found the HSE to be very easy people to deal with, helpful even. 
The HSE do not exist solely to screw people for making minor mistakes, the primary task is to help prevent the mistakes from happening. Provided you work with them, instead of against them, they are more than happy to provide all the free advice and consultancy you could possibly want.
Also, despite rumours to the contrary, they are not in the business of making a job more difficult at any cost. In actual fact, the HSE are more than happy to allow some quite frankly dangerous procedures to be carried out providing you can show you have risk assessed it and have determined no other way of carrying out a task with reasonable effort.
A prime example is the recovery of vehicles from the hard shoulder, which is by any stretch of the imagination a lethal pursuit. However despite the clear danger, not to mention the history of accidents, the HSE are more than happy to allow a firm to conduct these operations provided some basic precautions with regards to PPE and training in the correct techniques are provided, with no risk of prosecution in the event of an accident occuring as the operator has taken all reasonable steps to prevent an accident.
I agree wholeheartedly, in my experience, the HSE themselves are really very sensible.
The often ludicrous site rules that we have all come across have usually been
put into place by some jobsworth in the name of H&S and would make a proper
member of the HSE sigh just as much as we do.
Regards,
Nick.
ncooper:
I agree wholeheartedly, in my experience, the HSE themselves are really very sensible.
The often ludicrous site rules that we have all come across have usually been
put into place by some jobsworth in the name of H&S and would make a proper
member of the HSE sigh just as much as we do.Regards,
Nick.
Like a banksman walking infront of a lorry onsite; What’s the point and surely it puts the banksman at greater risk?
I think all these rules are actually a form of bullying and should be reported as such.
This man is insisting I wear my hi-vis whilst in my cab, driving with my hazards on, hard hat when I leave my vehicle etc.
Basically, he’s just trying to make me look like a prick for his own self satisfaction, this is bullying 
99% of the time, I just get on with what’s asked, have to drop red air lines at places, chock wheels at other places, wear hi-vis when entering the yard at some places (even in the cab of a 50 odd foot hgv) etc. But, I’ve had 2 incidents where I’ve been told off.
1: I parked on a road near a firm in Newport to have my 45, got told I’d have to move, no signs or anything, told them to bugger off, they said it was a private road and we’re not to stop there, I said that it wasn’t part of the induction process, they asked what induction process…
2: I was told to hand my keys in at a firm where it was going to be a 5hr tip, followed by a quick trailer swap and back to same firm for another 5hr tip, spoke to my firm, they agreed that it was against our insurance policy to hand keys over to random people etc. got told to drop trailer on bay, park outside yard, then got banned from site once trailer was tipped.
I’d offered all alternatives, drop trailer, red airline, trailer brake, chocks etc, but wasn’t happy to hand my keys over, cab would be unsecured if I went loo, no power for windows or power sockets etc.
I think these rules are made up and enforced by either bully’s or muppets who were bullied and now want to flex their muscles and become the bully’s, either way, it’s a form of bullying and should be stopped 
truckerjon:
And you’ve got to wear your hard hat at all times on site, even when walking across the truck park
I can go one better than that. We were issued with “bump caps” about 18 months ago, and a directive came round from our management that they were to be worn on site in “appropriate areas” which effectively meant inside the mill; no quarrel with that, there are plenty of places to bang yer nut in there. That was then extended to all areas of the yard, and now it’s crept on to include even office staff when they go for a smoke outside the gate!
dinosteveus1:
We all have to abide by site rules, follow the rules and pi55 off when the jobs done.
Some people have just got to always push the boundaries, even after they’ve been told before. Take your post for example, you’re using 55 instead of ss in an attempt to dodge the censor when ■■■■ off work perfectly fine.
The HSE are responsible for the overcrowding of these islands. Thanks to their meddling, stupid people can no longer kill themselves so easily. This leaves the stupid people alive to meet other stupid people and breed, thereby producing more stupid people.
What’s the world coming to when a stupid person can no longer think, “I wonder what will happen if I put my head (other body parts are available) in here?” Bang/slice/crush, he’s gone and there’s a bit more room for the rest of us. Or they say, “I think I will take a stroll behind this reversing vehicle.” Crunch, bump, they’re gone and that’s a little more space. “I wonder what this big electrical thingy tastes like?” Lick, FLASH, smell of burning and another one is dust and we have a little more elbow room.
Now thanks to warning signs, safety cut off devices, hi viz clothing and the like, these situations can no longer happen and it is messing with the natural order of things. Make people take responsibility for their own actions, with the ever present chance of a nasty death to help concentrate their minds. Make it illegal to sue when someone does a bit of damage to themselves because they claim they hadn’t been fully trained in something simple, like opening a door or climbing a step, that millions of folk successfully do every day.
The HSE are no better than any other terrorist group, such as al-Qaeda, RoSPA or the Catholic Church, and they must be stopped immediately for the sake of us all, well all except the stupid people, otherwise we are doomed.
Thankyou.
Sir,
Your post is a work of art.
Regards,
Nick
Coffeeholic:
The HSE are responsible for the overcrowding of these islands. Thanks to their meddling, stupid people can no longer kill themselves so easily. This leaves the stupid people alive to meet other stupid people and breed, thereby producing more stupid people.What’s the world coming to when a stupid person can no longer think, “I wonder what will happen if I put my head (other body parts are available) in here?” Bang/slice/crush, he’s gone and there’s a bit more room for the rest of us. Or they say, “I think I will take a stroll behind this reversing vehicle.” Crunch, bump, they’re gone and that’s a little more space. “I wonder what this big electrical thingy tastes like?” Lick, FLASH, smell of burning and another one is dust and we have a little more elbow room.
Now thanks to warning signs, safety cut off devices, hi viz clothing and the like, these situations can no longer happen and it is messing with the natural order of things. Make people take responsibility for their own actions, with the ever present chance of a nasty death to help concentrate their minds. Make it illegal to sue when someone does a bit of damage to themselves because they claim they hadn’t been fully trained in something simple, like opening a door or climbing a step, that millions of folk successfully do every day.
The HSE are no better than any other terrorist group, such as al-Qaeda, RoSPA or the Catholic Church, and they must be stopped immediately for the sake of us all, well all except the stupid people, otherwise we are doomed.
Thankyou.
well said
Seems textbook.
You made a suggestion. They read, acted and responded with a suggestion of their own.
Coffeeholic:
Harry Monk:
I suppose it would be less offensive in those sugar strands that were designed to imitate rolling tobacco that we kids used to be given in the 1960s… I even remember chocolate sticks wrapped in white paper and sold in packets almost identical to Camel cigarettes, shows how old I am, and how things have changed.That fake tobacco stuff was good. And you can still get it, although at a somewhat higher price than back in the day.
You can only bring 200 in though.
Coffeeholic:
The HSE are responsible for the overcrowding of these islands. Thanks to their meddling, stupid people can no longer kill themselves so easily. This leaves the stupid people alive to meet other stupid people and breed, thereby producing more stupid people.What’s the world coming to when a stupid person can no longer think, “I wonder what will happen if I put my head (other body parts are available) in here?” Bang/slice/crush, he’s gone and there’s a bit more room for the rest of us. Or they say, “I think I will take a stroll behind this reversing vehicle.” Crunch, bump, they’re gone and that’s a little more space. “I wonder what this big electrical thingy tastes like?” Lick, FLASH, smell of burning and another one is dust and we have a little more elbow room.
Now thanks to warning signs, safety cut off devices, hi viz clothing and the like, these situations can no longer happen and it is messing with the natural order of things. Make people take responsibility for their own actions, with the ever present chance of a nasty death to help concentrate their minds. Make it illegal to sue when someone does a bit of damage to themselves because they claim they hadn’t been fully trained in something simple, like opening a door or climbing a step, that millions of folk successfully do every day.
The HSE are no better than any other terrorist group, such as al-Qaeda, RoSPA or the Catholic Church, and they must be stopped immediately for the sake of us all, well all except the stupid people, otherwise we are doomed.
Thankyou.
damoq:
I suppose it was a bit rich coming from the same pallet network that allows Jumbo Bags of stones, sand etc weighing in excess of 1000kg to be placed onto pallets, knowing full well that the destination is a private address. Thats all well and good if there is a forklift at the destination but i cant ever recall anyone ever having one parked up in their driveway when i’ve arrived. Yes I have a tail lift but its wrong and dangerous to expect a driver to get these pallets off their truck and into a customers driveway on his own IMO, yet they seem to get away with it.
What utter crap. You can safely move over 1.5t with a pallet truck.