Posted by Peter Ceresole on January 13, 2008 at 21:20:36 from 80.176.146.133 user PeterC.
In Reply to: Re: A refreshing take on personal safety posted by Jock on January 13, 2008 at 23:15:42:
The comments on Fred's techniques regarding health and safety that follow are quite illuminating.
Well yes they are. But H&S regulations were made to prevent harm to people who, unlike Dibnah, didn't have a lot of choice about what they did. They were made to work in unsafe conditions in inherently dangerous industries, some of which valued the safety of their workers a great deal less than their profits. In Victorian times, workers were poisoned and maimed wholesale, and attempts to remedy that were derided in exactly the way that H&S regulations sometimes are now. The human cost was high, but it was felt that this was justified because the cost to the employers was low. The point of H&S legislation was to change that attitude. In general, despite very occasional overzealous application, I think it has made a difference. And a damn good thing too.