Thread: has OH&S gone overboard

YES.

I belong to a service club which has been meeting and working for over 50 years. In that time we've probably held thousands of barbecues whilst fund-raising, and never killed anyone.

Now we get all these BS orders from councils that we have to have training programs, and food safety programs, and enough rules, regulations and red tape to choke a wood chipper. It just isn't fun any more, and it is hardly worth the effort.

I reckon we need a rolling campaign of civil disobedience. For example, one one day of the year I'd like to see every service club set up an "illegal" barbecue in the busiest street in town. Let the b*stards go ahead and prosecute ... we'll either choke up the courts, or show them for the small minded safety nutters and Nazis that they are.

In other words, let's tell 'em to get stuffed.

YES

My FIL, had to implement stupid OH&S on his farm, now even his kids can't go within a certain area of his tractor or farm bikes without first doing OH&S, or the cattle yards, or in his shed. He enforces it because one day they might just spring a visit. It's all gone too far, but some pencil pusher sitting behind a desk has deemed it the way it has to be.

I know what I'd like to do with them..



Soon none of your kids will be able to go within cooee of your own backyard suburban shed. Litigation and lawyers also have a lot to answer for it.

Well you've got to cater for the lowest common denominator, don't you?

The problem is that there are a couple of types of people out there who make all this stuff difficult: people who don't have a lot of common sense/are desperate/just not very bright; and people who take advantage of them. Without all these laws, some employers are happy to send their employees into dangerous situations without the proper gear.

If you're making the decision about safety gear for yourself and it affects no-one else, well fair enough. But how do we know you're competent to make a call on it? You might be one of group a) above for all we know. So do we let you go off and do something silly, potentially damaging someone else's property or person or injuring yourself and contributing to the backlog in the medical and legal systems? Or do we implement laws that require safety gear to be used across the board?

As for the club functions and so on, I agree totally, it's ridiculous. Unfortunately a lot of that is insurance-driven. People injure themselves through stupid actions and sue the club. Have seen it happen. One lady I know of fell down some stairs during a function, sued the club, was paid out, then fell down the same stairs several months later. Some people just shouldn't be allowed out of doors.

Originally Posted by silentC

One lady I know of fell down some stairs during a function, sued the club, was paid out, then fell down the same stairs several months later. Some people just shouldn't be allowed out of doors.

See that would have me wondering if the design of that set of stairs was a problem. Perhaps only linked with a particular vision impairment, or perhaps linked to shadows that are cast over the staircase at a particular time of day. I guess what I am trying to say is that the stairs may not be dangerous to all people, or at all times but that fact that someone fell down them twice means it could be the stairs rather than the person. It could also be something else in the environment that is really the problem (a shadow on the top step renders it nearly invisible and somebody misses it e.g.)

Peter

Originally Posted by petersemple

See that would have me wondering if the design of that set of stairs was a problem. Perhaps only linked with a particular vision impairment, or perhaps linked to shadows that are cast over the staircase at a particular time of day. I guess what I am trying to say is that the stairs may not be dangerous to all people, or at all times but that fact that someone fell down them twice means it could be the stairs rather than the person. It could also be something else in the environment that is really the problem (a shadow on the top step renders it nearly invisible and somebody misses it e.g.)

Peter

Whereas I would be looking closely at that person and wondering where else she "fell over"

When I did my OH&S training course years ago. The main impression I got from the trainer was that these rules are there to make any workers comp claims more difficult.

Basically he was saying that if you have an accident and cant prove that you did "everything reasonable" to prevent or reduce the likelyhood of that accident .....you were stuffed.

Applying that idea to some of the jobs that I have been asked to do by employers over the years....simply they would just not have got done. Because it became too cost prohibitive due to the extra man hours and equipment needed to do "everything resonable" to reduce the likelyhood of an accident.

cheers
BD

Maybe we should go the other way ... a few more deaths from "OH&S" factors might be a good thing:

* Reduce the pressure on scarce national resources like water
* Reduce the pressure on government infrastructure like hospitals, transport, etc.
* (and for most of the idiots who caused this overload) raise the national IQ

Death through stupidity is God's way of cleaning up the gene pool.

For some people, retrospective abortion laws should have been introduced (especially OH&S pencil pushers).

Hope there's none on the forum.

Steve (bugger should have changed my name)

Originally Posted by Gra

Whereas I would be looking closely at that person and wondering where else she "fell over"

Either is possible. It could be the person, could be the stairs, or could be an interaction between the two. You just can't make the assumption that the person was at fault from the info given (but you also can't make the assumption that it wasn't her fault either...

Peter

what can I say. I am a cynic

As far as we know, she's the only person to ever fall down them. Well lit, large, sweeping. She's certainly the only person to ever fall down twice.

Originally Posted by Gra

what can I say. I am a cynic

One person's cynic is another's realist

Peter

i hate OH&S.!!!

they make life so much more annoying

Best treatment for an OH&S inspector is to accidental back over them once .......... or twice.

Advantages of a backhoe is you can dig a nice hole for their vehicle.