Hi-viz H&S gone mad(der)?

[I like Skol]

Just watching the BBC breakfast drivel and they keep running a report from a Northwest shampoo bottling factory which is nothing controversial. However, what did catch my attention was the fact that everybody, without fail (workers, MD, reporters), were wearing hi-viz vests.
I carefully assessed the environment and it looked like the biggest wheeled movement would be a pallet/pump truck and none of the machinery was particularly big or scary so why the hi-viz?
Is it a case of mindless H&S policy or simply because the TV cameras are coming so let's try to look professional?

 

[steve50]

It might be company policy.

 

[bikingdad90]

It has something to do with the safety regulations. There are minimum requirements depending on the class of site you are and if you breach the policy the HSE can come down hard!

 

[swansonj]

I am not an automatic defender of the blanket use of hi viz either in this case or in general.

However, a quite legitimate H&S approach is about creating cultures and about zero tolerance as a tool within that. Requiring hi viz, or hard hats, or whatever, can often not be so much about the specific or immediate safety benefit as about establishing the wider safety culture.

 

[I like Skol]

It might be company policy.

That doesn't make it right, necessary or sensible though does it?

 

[raleighnut]

It's just H&S nobbery, I once got nearly sent home from an agency job for wearing these at the 'assignment', when asked why that should happen I was told "You need steel toecap boots here" I walked to a nearby steel girder and kicked it to produce a loud 'clang'.

The guy confessed he'd never seen steel toecap trainers before.

 

[I like Skol]

It has something to do with the safety regulations. There are minimum requirements depending on the class of site you are and if you breach the policy the HSE can come down hard!

I'm sure (actually I'm probably unsure) that the HSE wouldn't insist everybody on site must wear hi-viz because there is a risk someone might drop a box on their foot? Don't they encourage the risk to be neutralised?

 

[swansonj]

It's just H&S nobbery, I once got nearly sent home from an agency job for wearing these at the 'assignment', when asked why that should happen I was told "You need steel toecap boots here" I walked to a nearby steel girder and kicked it to produce a loud 'clang'.

The guy confessed he'd never seen steel toecap trainers before.

I have had a similar experience. I am issued with steel toecap but smart looking office shoes. I once wore them on a day trip to Brussels by Eurostar to save changing. When I came to go into the substation below some European Parliament building, I had to demonstrate their steel toecaps to the Belgian engineer.

But that's not H&S nobbery , that's just checking that the rules are being followed. Nobbery comes in, if at all, in setting the rules. Once you have rules, the worst thing you can do is not follow or enforce them.

 

[shouldbeinbed]

If you have nobberised rule yes follow and enforce them but the worst thing you can do is not challenge them. Passive acceptance of formalised idiocy just leads to more of it

 

[Venod]

H & S regs are a good thing but treat people as if they have no common sense, the wearing of safety helmets on construction sites are an example of this, if you are digging footings etc with no overhead work you still need an helmet, and even if there is work overhead if you are a Sikh and there is debris falling all around its OK not to wear a helmet as long as you wear a flimsy Turban you will be OK.

 

[Accy cyclist]

I miss this high viz idiot.

 

[swansonj]

H & S regs are a good thing but treat people as if they have no common sense, the wearing of safety helmets on construction sites are an example of this, if you are digging footings etc with no overhead work you still need an helmet, and even if there is work overhead if you are a Sikh and there is debris falling all around its OK not to wear a helmet as long as you wear a flimsy Turban you will be OK.

But that's my point about the broader factors in play when setting H&S policy.

If you allow people to decide for themselves when the risk justifies wearing a hard hat (or any other PPE - in my industry a big issue was safety harnesses and attachment while working at height), sooner or later they will decide not to wear it when they needed it, and some manager will be knocking on a door to tell a wife she's now a widow. A simple zero tolerance "no hat no boots no job" approach with no choice for the individual takes that risk away, and if you take that approach, you will inevitably encompass activities which, taken individually, do not warrant the hard hat or whatever.

It's not the only approach. The alternative is to go down the opposite route of trying to get people to take ownership of their own safety and make their own choices. Sadly, that's a harder route to make successful.

 

[srw]

If you have nobberised rule yes follow and enforce them but the worst thing you can do is not challenge them. Passive acceptance of formalised idiocy just leads to more of it

Believe me - people who set rules are usually very aware of the risk of formalising idiocy. But by definition they're usually more expert than the idiots they ask to obey them, who don't have the full picture. It gets rather dull having to say for the 29th time that the rules have been set for a reason, so stop wasting my time and get on with it.


(I am normally politer....)

 

[Drago]

It's like Time Team, where they all soberly don hard hats and then stand in an 18" deep excavation. I mean, why? Are they worried about meteoritic impact?

 

[mjr]

It gets rather dull having to say for the 29th time that the rules have been set for a reason, so stop wasting my time and get on with it.

(I am normally politer....)

Lots aren't polite. The reasons should be explained but all too often either the orderer doesn't know them or simply gets a kick out of asserting their authority and implying that manual workers are too thick to understand the reasons... which of course leads to some workers discarding protective kit once the orderer isn't looking but that's OK because then the workers can be blamed for injuries and that's sometimes what these rules are about, rather than actually reducing injuries.