EastAnglianTrucker:
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.
Great post this. ^^^
For example:
If you are laid down in a field full of bright yellow flowers in all yellow hiviz, how easy would you be to spot from the air?
If you were laid in the same field in a black jacket and trousers, how easy would you be to spot?
A silly example yes. But illustrates beautifully that, when all are wearing the same stuff, everyone blends into the background and ‘disappears’
Most H&S is an unnecessary waste of time. One day the above will occur to the powers that be and we’ll all have to wear different colour hiviz. There will be a roaring trade, some will go for Nike, some Adidas, some M&S!!!
I was once pulled up in a B&Q RDC for ‘not having my hazards on’ I apologised and asked why. I was told it was ‘company policy’. ‘Ok,’ says I, ‘why is it company policy?’ Erm, ahem, erm, and the driver had no idea. He eventually said ‘so you can be seen’. Ah, said I, ‘so how is it you were able to walk over to my lorry and address me about it just now if I can’t be seen without my hazards on? Surely if you can’t see a Scania with a 40ft Maersk box on it you shouldn’t be working here?’ And, ‘I’ve just driven here from Fxto (180m) without them on and no-one has run into me. Are all the staff here blind or stupid?’
No one had an answer that made any sense at all…company policy is to pay some chinless wonder 40K a year to sit in an office playing at silly buggers… 
I remember as a youngster working for Ilford Films in the pitch dark our only H$S was you had to keep shouting “Mind me” whilst trundling through the corridors, bloody hilarious. 
