PPE rules inconsistencies.

[Roderick]

Not only that, there's a mindset thing - the hi-viz can be a reminder that you are in a potentially hazardous environment. On virtually every construction site, hi viz, hat and boots are mandatory (no hat, no vest, no boots, no entry) and when you do see someone on site without any of this, you immediately ask yourself why...

/snip

But therein lies the problem, because of the overuse hi-viz no longer has that 'reminder' function.

Case in point, yesterday passing a building site I nearly ran over a muppet with a clipboard, mobile phone and dressed in hi-viz who just crossed the road without even stopping or looking for traffic.

Where steel caps have an inherit safety function, hi-viz does not actually protect you from anything. IMHO hi-viz is the boy cried wolf of the H&S industry.

 

Reminders should be communicated at the start of a shift during the toolbox talk.

Five minutes of TBT will have more effect on improving safety than full body armour.

Make people understand what the risk is so that they are alert about it, just handing them a hi-viz vests numbs that required level of alertness.

[richard]

Case in point, yesterday passing a building site I nearly ran over a muppet with a clipboard, mobile phone and dressed in hi-viz who just crossed the road without even stopping or looking for traffic.

 

I'm not sure that the hi viz is relevant here, in central london I often see people wander in to the road - they are not wearing hi viz, they are just not paying attention. The tube now play announcements saying 'mind the gap and stay away from the edge of the platform, especially when using mobile phones' as people are now being so careless

 

Richard

[dunk_1984]

On the note of PPE and it making the wearer feel invincible, there are several documents and reports on this in the road working profession.

 

An interesting aside to the issue of conspicuity aids could be the increased risk taking behaviour of the wearer. Greater confidence in your conspicuity could lead to assumptions that drivers are able to see you and react in time in all situations – with no allowance made for the fact that there may be additional in-car distractions or that the driver may not have even been looking in the workers direction. The assumption by the worker that they „must‟ be seen is just as dangerous as wearing no PPE at all. Safety training must continue to reiterate it‟s a jacket – not a force field, (Moberly, Langham, Labbett & Higgins, 2004).

 

Taken from: High Conspicuity Garments for Road Workers

Final Report

by M Chattington, M Langham and I Rillie

 

It also talks about visual clutter/camouflage, this may be relevant to Rob's point, where it is accepted that hi-vis makes someone more visible, but when you have a sea of hi-vis, suddenly people don't stand out and an individual may not be quite so visible.

[Grum]

My favourites (or not) are the venues that require you to wear a hard hat at FOH when work is being carried out using a cherry picker on stage. As if a hard hat is going to protect me from an object that can do me harm when its dropped over 20 metres away. Especially when the management and cleaning staff are not required to wear hard hats despite being in the same area.

 

Also, the venues whose risk assessments require hi-vis and hard hats yet they're completely OK with multiple diesel engines being used in an enclosed space. I know arenas are large but if I can detect a strong smell of fumes at FOH then the ventilation can't be that good.

[Andrew C]

Bikers are finding the same with Hi-Vis. We have narrowly avoided (for now) Euro inspired "every biker must wear one", but only on a technicality.

 

The "technicality? The Eurocrats ignored ALL evidence, especially that which said "it won't help".

 

There is some talk of American studies (I've not seen any in the flesh) that found that drivers "see" hi-vis as something "safe". Like a street sweeper, or cyclist. Not something weighing 1/4 ton, and doing 60mph. It also seems that wearing "colors" and other "biker" paraphernalia has the desired result. The driver sees a hazard.

[itiba]

My particular pet hate on-site is the insistence on using hazard lights on vehicles. It just means that other road users cannot tell in which direction a vehicle is turning. My own preference would be for only vehicles with an orange flashing light or cluster allowed on-site, i.e. no private vehicles and vans etc having to carry a magnetic orange fuzz light for use when they arrive at a site.

 

Sorry for veering off-topic.

 

Incidentally there is now a campaign at http://www.hazardsoff.org.uk/

[chelgrian]

Hard hats are another often abused piece of PPE. Yes they are great if someone is working above and drops a shackle. But they are not going to make any difference if someone drops a bit of automated lighting, let alone a piece of line array. Yet everyone with hard hat feels invincible and that is a worrying trend. A piece of hazard tape between a few roadcases to keep the area clear is a much better solution by separating people from the risk.

 

An oft forgotten benefit of the hard hat is that if you manage to stand up in to a bar or bit of decking then the hard hat makes the difference between possible concussion and possible blood everywhere and just cursing that you've been so stupid being ticked off by whoever is running the load in for being so stupid.

 

That alone makes them mandatory during lampie fitups at a couple of our local theatres.

 

I whole heartedly agree with the only sane thing to do when anything heavy is being moved overhead is not to be anywhere near underneath it having come far too close for comfort to the 'hard hat is not going to make any difference' end of things due to mismanagement of a out some years ago when authorisation was given to move something overhead when it should not have been.

[themadhippy]

An oft forgotten benefit of the hard hat is that if you manage to stand up in to a bar or bit of decking then the hard hat makes the difference between possible concussion and possible blood everywhere and just cursing that you've been so stupid being ticked off by whoever is running the load in for being so stupid.

sorry but I disagree.over the years ive found I'll wack my head on something more often when wearing a hard hat,without you tend to be aware more of whats around you,you stand up slowly just incase,the only ppe I wear regularly is steelies,and thats more so I don't hurt my toes when kicking miss behaving kit or badly fitting flight case lids into place

[sleah]

An oft forgotten benefit of the hard hat is that if you manage to stand up in to a bar or bit of decking then the hard hat makes the difference between possible concussion and possible blood everywhere and just cursing that you've been so stupid being ticked off by whoever is running the load in for being so stupid.

sorry but I disagree.over the years ive found I'll wack my head on something more often when wearing a hard hat,without you tend to be aware more of whats around you,you stand up slowly just incase

 

A bump cap or Beanie being the ideal compromise.....

[BlueShift]

Interesting conversation.

 

The principle issue here, which I think has been well covered, is that safety at work (in our industry particularly), is all about awareness and training. PPE doesn't make you safe. In some cases, it can mitigate risks, but clearly the first step is to minimise the situations where the risk was so great that PPE was required in the first place.

 

A couple of things particularly bother me:

 

1) People forget the first 'P' in PPE. Its 'Personal' equipment. If you need it, you should have your own, and be responsible for its upkeep and maintenance. Who's to say if you pick up a scuffed up hard hat from a venue bin that it hasn't been previously damaged and its safety rating is compromised?

 

2) Hard hats without chin straps when any kind of work at height are concerned are idiotic. This should be self evident.

 

3) The high vis, as others have said, is completely overused. There are plenty of hazardous things during a load in that aren't people. Making certain things brightly coloured often reduces peoples sensitivity to all the not-brightly-coloured hazards! Clearly if you are on a crew building a skyscraper with big cranes about, the crane operator appreciates people on the ground in high vis. Without it, he may not actually be able to see them clearly. But on a stage during a load in? People need to be more aware of their surroundings...

 

4) Steel caps and hard hats do not make you safe from falling things. Be that a flightcase being tipped onto your foot, or a shackle falling from the grid. Hard hat or not, don't stand directly under men fumbling with shackles overhead. Steel caps or not, give forklifts in the dock some room...

[Stuart91]

2) Hard hats without chin straps when any kind of work at height are concerned are idiotic. This should be self evident.

 

It would certainly be ironic for someone to have their skull stoved in by a hard hat dropped by someone working at height...

[BlueShift]

2) Hard hats without chin straps when any kind of work at height are concerned are idiotic. This should be self evident.

 

It would certainly be ironic for someone to have their skull stoved in by a hard hat dropped by someone working at height...

 

Absolutely. Yet I have seen certain people at H&S crazy events at height, with hats w/ no chin straps and their phones out... Ironic indeed

[OllieDuff]

 

An oft forgotten benefit of the hard hat is that if you manage to stand up in to a bar or bit of decking then the hard hat makes the difference between possible concussion and possible blood everywhere and just cursing that you've been so stupid being ticked off by whoever is running the load in for being so stupid.

 

That alone makes them mandatory during lampie fitups at a couple of our local theatres.

 

As a member of the stood-up-into-a-Patt23-blood-everywhere club, I can vouch for this. It happened at one of the venues that Paul is referring to, but as it happened during a quick changeover between two productions in rep then no one was wearing hard hats. On the flip side of the coin, I once crewed a show with a piece of set that was flown in on a counterweight lineset and the trucked off, using a concrete weight offstage to balance the lineset when it didn't have the load on it; a well-meaning colleague was insistent that the person connecting the weight should be wearing a hard hat, which would totally protect them from 150kg of concrete being flown in fast, as opposed to marking the landing area with tape and keeping both crew and errant thesps out of it.

 

Long story short, PPE can be appropriate but seek out better options first!

[Roderick]

http://www.swinburne.edu.au/corporate/hr/ohs/risk/images/hierarchy_control.fw.png