Thread: has OH&S gone overboard

I agree. Many OHS regs are butt paper covering exercises and don't really contribute to real safety.

BUT if you know anyone who works in an hospital emergency ward and you hear how many ning-nongs are out there you can understand why some of these things are done.

A couple of weeks back I posted this - in case you didn't read it;

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Extracted from http://www.monash.edu.au/muarc/reports/Other/DHS01.pdf

Did you know that ladders, lawn mowers and grinders are the most common tool in use when which DIY injuries happen!

What I find surprising is the sheer lack of any PPE use.
Only 14% of people injured using grinders were wearing ANY PPE!
With Circular saws only 24% were wearing ANY PPE, while chainsaws have the highest PPE use it was still only 29%. This includes the wearing of ANY PPE, so although 24% of people using circular saws were wearing some PPE, only 13% of people were wearing face protection!

Only one in 10 people that own a power tool actually own any PPE.

The most common injuries are foreign body in eyes (15%), finger cuts (14%), hand cuts (5%)

Top 5 tools/events resulting visiting an emergency care facility are
Grinders, lawnmowers, ladders, motor vehicle maintenance and welders.

Top 5 for hospital admissions
Ladders, lawnmowers, power saws, circular saws and motor vehicle maintenance

Top 5 for death
Electrical Maintenance, Ladders, Tractors, Backhoes and Trees

i must admit i dont ever use any protection when using powertools i dont personaly see a need to. i also remove gards off of tools so they are easyer to use.

i do like to wear long sleaved shirt when grinding but thats cos the sparks anoy the ??????? outa me.

i dont wear shoes in the workshop, i will wear earmufs when using the planer for extended priods.

i wear earmuffs when using the chainsaw mill (not general sawing at work) i also wear tehm when using the whipersnipper and tractor for more that 10 mins. i wear long pants when wippersniping also but that is as far as my "PPE" goes.

i am going threw the training at the moment to be coverd by the fire brigades OH&S when at a fire. and it has taken us 2 years of 1st tueasdays and finaly the final test is on friday and i am sick to death of all the BS. it asthow they dont want volenters.

Geez, Weisyboy, perhaps we DO need some laws after all ... or at least someone to knock a bit of sense into your head!

* Guards off tools? Count your fingers while you may.
* No shoes? Don't ever drop a chisel or an axe.
* No eye protection? Well, at least you won't have to worry about too much masturbation making you blind.

I guess the choice is yours, but I think you're taking it to extreme.

Originally Posted by weisyboy

i
i wear earmuffs when using the chainsaw mill (not general sawing at work) i also wear tehm when using the whipersnipper and tractor for more that 10 mins.

Wait till you get to my age and the Tinnitus motorbike catches up to you then you will get annoyed.

not working now when i was oh&s is a far better negiotion tool than working to rule as in early union days and i only sat on my bum driving iron ore trains for about 28yrs.oh&s is a way of giving someone with no experience a job because of a few letters after a name.

Originally Posted by weisyboy

i must admit i dont ever use any protection when using powertools i dont personaly see a need to. i also remove gards off of tools so they are easyer to use.

Hang on - you just contradicted yourself below - what do you think ear muffs are?

i do like to wear long sleaved shirt when grinding but thats cos the sparks anoy the ??????? outa me.

Well that is a start but a bare minimum is goggles or a face shield on a grinder - go ask any emergency hospital work what DIY accident they see most of. Also some sound frequencies from grinders are worse than chainsaws so if you wear muffs when using a CS you should wear them for grinding.

i dont wear shoes in the workshop,

No comment.

i will wear earmufs when using the planer for extended priods.

now you got the idea!

i wear earmuffs when using the chainsaw mill (not general sawing at work) i also wear tehm when using the whipersnipper and tractor for more that 10 mins. i wear long pants when wippersniping also but that is as far as my "PPE" goes.

Well that's a lot more than many people do so you are definitely in the PPE user camp. I've seen people in thongs and t-shirt and a fag and nothing else cutting fire wood for hours - My dad ended up virtually completely deaf from using chainsaws in the 50's and 60's without muffs until it was too late - thing was he loved classical music and in the end he said it all sounded like mud.

i am going threw the training at the moment to be coverd by the fire brigades OH&S when at a fire. and it has taken us 2 years of 1st tueasdays and finaly the final test is on friday and i am sick to death of all the BS. it asthow they dont want volenters.

Did they ask you to volunteer ? They are only doing their job - not everyone is as good as you are Carl at avoiding accidents in the workplace and as honourable at not taking them to court afterwards. Even if you could sign a complete disclaimer that if things go pear shaped you won't sue them if you are not wearing any PPE, it wouldn't hold water in court.

Heres a good OH &s example.

I run a home maintenance business. My public liability insurance requires me to take due care when working espacially at heights.

Now, on a commercial site, i.e, large building with all the safety systems in place, If I work at height I need to wear a harness which is part of a roofers safety kit. These sites have spots all over the place to tie the rope to that is attatched to my harness to stop me falling off the roof.

In all the years I've worked on privately owned house's I've not once seen a tie-off point read large ring fixed to roof let alone a fixing point that I can get to without going against the regulations for working at heights. I made mention of this to my insurance broker one day to which she replied, UH?

Alot of the OH & S regs now days are a good thing for peoples immediate and long term health but some of the rules just havent had alot of thought put to them. They seem to be a knee-jerk reaction to a situation, not a well thought out fix to the problem.

As a qualified cabinet maker I've worked in factories where it was impossible to see from one end of the factory to the other because of the dust in the air. One place had a 4 sided spindle moulder with no extraction system, for twelve months we worked around 4 heaps of shavings sometimes 10 feet high.

I wouldnt want to go back to the old days but I wished alot of the new regs would actually make sense in the real world.

Just my thoughts.

Ross.

Alot of the OH & S regs now days are a good thing for peoples immediate and long term health but some of the rules just havent had alot of thought put to them. They seem to be a knee-jerk reaction to a situation, not a well thought out fix to the problem.

At work (where I line manage over 100 people) we have some pretty dangerous things, as well as a mechanical workshop, we have lasers, radioactive stuff and x-ray gear, 20kV+ equipment, and chemicals that can seep through your skin and turn bones into jelly, and one drop of can turn a eyeball into a rock. We have what I think are sensible safe work practices but stuff still happens, one guy had a shape of the letter "L" permanently burned into his retina from moving his head through the reflection of a laser beam, one guy cut his thumb off with a bandsaw, and one guy burnt the skin off his family jewels with a liquid nitrogen burn. Each time we reviewed what happened and where appropriate have put new safety protocols into place. We document this according to the rules and can demonstrate all the paper trails needed.

But apparently that is not good enough. Now the bureaucrats and state public servants (Who haven't got much of a clue) have got their hands on OHS and we have to deal with the most bewildering regulations on matters that we have never had a problems with before, which just takes away from the real problems we want to address. For example every container that holds a chemical (even air is considered a chemical) now has to be labelled, the coffee powder in the staff room, the shampoo in the showers and the detergent under the staff room sink. We have hundreds of bottles containing ultrapure water in freezers - "where are the labels"? is continually asked.

Now we have a new rule coming in that no one can work alone! This one really gives me the pips as most of us work alone from time to time, some a lot more than others.

Also if we work at home we have to have our home inspected for OHS as well and guess who has to do the preliminary assessment? Of course I have nothing else to do than visit 100 peoples houses to look at their working conditions. By comparison, wearing earmuffs and a face shield when using a grinder suddenly makes a lot of sense.

So how do we change it to be practical or do we keep accepting the lobby and minority groups controlling us with their views?
We are being controlled by fear (on many fronts) and financial ruin through legistlation so why are we not questioning the practicalities. There needs to be a balance in the system. We used to fight for our rights but this is sadly disappearing.
Not a rant just an observation on how things are changing.

i agree rod

Practicality? You do your darndest to be sure you are safe and others around you are safe. If you are not going to follow all the OH&S rules and regs, then if something happens, don't bl*****y winge about it, but accept the responsibility that is yours in the matter. For example, if I do not wear safety glasses and a chip of timber lands in my eye, as did happen last Sunday, then it is my own stupid fault for not wearing the glasses. If I had been wearing glasses, you would have heard me winging from dusk till dawn. OK maybe not the best example, but you get my drift.


Yes, we do have OH&S staff as members here. Just remember too, that they are also in a difficult position too, between the laws and us.

All this talk of OH&S principles laws etc and still people go to work smashed, off their faces. and these are the people who are writting and producing these laws.

But hey a UNI degree and year 12 education says you have more brains.

Boss demanding people come to work with flu's which dull the senses, those who are on over the counter drugs which clearly state not to operate any machinery this includes driving not to mention prescribed drugs which can do even worse.

i must admit i dont ever use any protection when using powertools i dont personaly see a need to. i also remove gards off of tools so they are easyer to use.

i dont wear shoes in the workshop

Sorry mate but you're exactly the type of person that has caused these rules to be introduced. So you've got no-one to blame but people like yourself who are too stubborn or stupid or whatever to do the right thing. Do you really think not wearing shoes in a workshop is a smart thing? Mate, I would not brag about that on a public forum because it doesn't reflect on you too well.

Sometimes I just shake my head in wonder....

so thats the annoying sound I keep hearing