I agree Toltec, it is a tricky one and I don’t want to seem anti H&S because I’m certainly not. But the plethora of petty regulations which, in the words of Dixie, ‘weaken necessary ones’ are making a mockery of good Health and Safety legislation. I think, or thought, that’s what Cameron was saying.
Looking through some of the cases Jom I see what you mean. But what strikes me is H&S isn’t preventing much that couldn’t, and shouldn’t, be prevented by simply employing competent people with adeqaute training. An idiot will
always find a way of hurting himself or others.
Taking the first one I looked at as an example, where someone got hit by a runaway industrial machine, if people don’t know that you should park it properly and safely I very much doubt that they will change, or be more aware, because of H&S. What’s more, even without it they would surely still be liable and sued? If anything, surely it demonstrates that H&S didn’t make a difference in that case.
It smacks a little of, dare I say it, speeding: Someone kills a pedestrian through speeding in the wrong place, time, situation so they slap a restriction on speed everywhere which captures the majority of safe drivers, not the stupid and dangerous ones. So what did that achieve?
People have infinitely more respect for legislation which makes good sense. The day you start taking it to extremes it loses its effectiveness. Proof? Ask anyone about H&S and they’ll have a story or personal experience of what I’m saying. I know I’ve got loads. Here’s one from earlier in the year for an example..
During the summer I went to a place to eat which is upstairs. It was blazing hot and none of the doors were open to the outside where there is a balcony.
There was no air conditioning so when I asked if they could please unlock some of the doors and open them I was told they can’t because of H&S, even though there were rails in place to prevent any child from walking off the edge to their death. So we just had to sit there and swelter. I felt sorrier for the hard working staff who are there all day.
Now sure, if someone wanted to they could scale the barrier and jump off. So what if a child pulled a chair up to it and climbed up and over? Well I think I’d question what the parent was doing, not make life difficult for the rest of us.
The sad thing is, anyone who says this just looks like a demon. It is impossible to question H&S just as you cannot question speeding under
any circumstances. It's ridiculous and does
not get to the root of the problem!
PeterE wrote:
Cameron might retard the onward march of the Bully State to some degree, but does anyone seriously believe he will roll it back to any significant extent?
No
Not at all sadly. I'm with dcb there I think..