1) Why? to me this is completely stupid and a waste of time. The only thing this does is inform the HSE that we get bumps, bruises and scratches daily and the next thing you know some desk jockey will come up with the idea that we should all be wrapped in cotton wool and kevlar.
2) adjustments? (see my first point) e.g. "ok guys before we start i want you all to wear the chainmail overalls because you might scratch yourself on a twig"
3) Why? (see my first and second points)
4) Yes they are. We have a difficult and dangerous job that involves lots of physical ability and strength on difficult terrain or in the air, slips, trips, small cuts/scratches, bumps and bruises etc ARE inevitable unless like my first point we wrap up completely in body armour, in which case our job becomes physically impossible to move with all the stuff we have to wear.
Here is my thoughts on the subject....
When people pass their saw tickets or whatever tickets they have for the jobs they do. It then becomes their responsibility to do what they have been taught. If these people have accidents because of ignorance or just complete stupidity then either they shouldnt have passed the ticket in the first place (which many do, going by some i have seen) or they are just not cut out for the job to begin with. I have seen many people in my time that are just terrible woodcutters and it amazes me how they passed the course in the first place, are the tickets so easy to pass these days that all you need to be able to do is just start the saw???? or did they just have the correct ppe on???
It seems to me that skill and intelligence have been bypassed and now all we are producing is robots that need to be programmed to do every movement. I know we joke a lot about common sense being dead but in truth it is very close to it, and it is getting worse by all these stupid rules and regulations that we have, which stop people thinking for themselves. I am all for health and safety up to the point where it is insulting to my intelligence which it passed a long time ago. Most of the rules and regs we have are in place because someone had an accident, some of which were probably avoidable if the person had just used a bit of common sense and foresight, so we get hit with another bit of programming for the robots. With my experience i can pretty much see all the things that could go wrong before they do and get myself in the correct position to avoid danger but sometimes things can surprise you (every day is a school day) and you learn from these. I have never had a serious accident in all my time just by using common sense, sure i get bumps and bruises but that IS part of the job and for the most part completely unavoidable. If we keep going down the road we are going then bumps and bruises will be a thing of the past but so will humanity and practicality. We will be all dolled up like spacemen with the ability to cut 1 branch per day before collapsing with exhaustion and i bet we will still be paid the same for the WHOLE tree.
Anyway i could argue this forever and still get nowhere because we cant go back to the good old days where skilled labour and common sense were all that was needed, now we need a degree in paperwork and an inspector to tuck our shirts into our trousers.
Before i get crucified by the HSE lovers i will say that i do agree with keeping us all safe and some of us need a bit more guidance than others but i suppose thats what happens when natural selection was taken from us just like common sense will be taken too.
Keep safe people and think first:001_smile: