Discussions

There is such a thing as common sense. Think of gravity, right from a very early age we learn about gravity, usually not from books but from experience and observation. Gravity doesn't care whether your a person or an object, it will cause objects to fall on you, or it will cause you to fall on objects. All the rules and paperwork in the world won't help anyone if they are not smart enough to recognize dangerous situations.

No one is disputing that safety rules and regulations are important. What people are disputing is the extreme some of these rules and regulations are. Reality is no matter what rules and regulations are in place, accidents can still happen and no matter what happened to cause a workplace accident and who's at fault, the company the employee is working for always gets in trouble someway.  
 
Hate to say it but if you don't work in the industry, then you have no idea.  
 
 
 
Edited by The_Young_Man, 2016-02-24 12:28:21

Most societal decisions, these days, are geared to the lowest common denominator. Whether it is workplace safety, what gets taught in a course/classroom or the safety instructions when you board a plane. I sometimes wonder if people would start dropping dead if breathing suddenly became a voluntary action instead of involuntary and no one was there to say "breathe". For a situation to be relatively safe (not idiot proof or guaranteed safe) there needs to be a mix of external safety measures and internal awareness (common sense). When there is too much focus on external measures and little to no onus on personal responsibility, one's internal safety measures get under utilized and forgotten. Safety forms in triplicate are CYA policy and not safety policy. Practicing worksite awareness is the way to lessen (not eliminate) workplace accidents.

People want to post links about businesses and people getting hurt. Look at a lot of the situations. Many are fall protection. Workers have the RIGHT TO REFUSE! If a boss wants to tell me to get up on a roof without fall protection or lose my job.....I will walk off the site and call in a safety officer. No job is worth your life.

So what your saying is everyone has identical life experiences and have learned the same thing from them? Everyone has been taught the same way as well in performing any task? Hmmm....We are curious now! Outside of your example of gravity give us another example? Such as an industry. Pick any industry and we will all compare our experiences to yours and each others. Hence this is why Health & Safety is in place. People Have died!!! Plain and simple.

Perhaps the father of the boy who lost his finger wishes there was more Safety in the workplace!! 13 yr old boy hurt for life and people are complaining there is too much paper work. What if that was your kid, or if you lost your spouse to a workplace accident?? Safety is there for a reason, to protect workers , usually from themselves!!!  

the rules are there because like bigdaddy explained so well, what is common sense to you isnt to everyone, just ask that 13yer old kid, the paper work is there tho so that companies can cover their butts and proof they are working on being safe

This is the world we live in. On the positive, safety has become more of a proactive step rather then a reactive one. instead of waiting until some one gets hurt or worse killed, and then looking at what we should have done to prevent it. Now we are being proactive in taking steps to make sure what ever we are doing, we do it safely so we don't get hurt.  
And I believe it also helps to inform workers of their rights. Not that long a go a lot of people didn't think we had any, I was told years a go to get on the bucket of a hi hoe and they would lower me down in to a 20 ft deep hole to unhook something off of a directional drill bit, I looked in and said "Na Im good", the walls looked like they were going to cave in and the hole was no where near big enough, there was a pretty obvious risk or threat, I said no ,, but how many people in that situation didn't ,, and how many people have been hurt or killed because they couldn't say no, and didn't understand there rights,, Safety is also about education,, the cost,, well I value my own life pretty high. what's yours worth..  
lol, well that's my rant for the day ,