Qualifications/NVQ - JD450 On a Rampage.....

[Bri963]

We don’t need more rules, just better enforcement of the ones we have, and unfortunately since the HSE became self-funding, they can impose bigger fines on the biggest companies. So where do they target for routine inspections? Small companies get away with things Because no-pne is doing spot checks, then they get a bit braver and more reckless, until they have a big one, and only then do the HSE get involved. First offence, slap on the wrist, keep your head down, then start cutting corners again.

 

[Brendan]

Is everybody, really wearing their seatbelts everytime they are in a machine

 

[Bri963]

Is everybody, really wearing their seatbelts everyone they are in a machine

Can’t speak for everyone, but if it’s fitted, and the machine has a cab or frame I wear it. Can’t ask other people to if I don’t, and can’t see a reason not to.

 

[Grahams]

Is everybody, really wearing their seatbelts everyone they are in a machine

Only if my risk assessment says I need to.

 

[Smiffy]

Can’t speak for everyone, but if it’s fitted, and the machine has a cab or frame I wear it. Can’t ask other people to if I don’t, and can’t see a reason not to.

This is one of the problems blanket rules
Surely there should be a certain amount of common sense with the risk assessment and personal responsibility
A 1t high tip running round rough ground then yes seat belt is needed
A 9t dumper running stone from a stock pile to a new track
Then what's the point if you roll a 9 tonne dumper on flat ground you need more help than a seatbelt can provide

It's the same reason I had to wear a hard hat to stand on the pavement surrounded by pedestrians last week as we can't be trusted to think for our selves

 

[Bri963]

Not blanket rules, I was speaking for myself, as I couldn’t care less what people do unless it’s going to come back at me if they get it wrong. However, what does it personally cost to buckle up a belt or put on a hard hat? As far as I can see it’s either laziness or too proud to be told what to do. Following someone else’s safety rules hasn’t cost me a penny, and I started working in the 70’s and can remember the “good old days”.

When the seatbelt law came in back in the 1980’s, there was a lot of grumbling along the same lines. The first day the law came in a car went off an embankment in front of one of my mates, rolled a couple of times and ended up on it’s roof. The driver crawled out and said it was the first time in his life he’d worn a seat belt. Is that a bad blanket rule? Or crash helmets on motorbikes? (That’ll get some of the bikers going)

We had an “operator” who was too Billy Big Bollocks to need a seat belt. He head butted the windscreen out of a 963 and concussed himself. Seen a lad in a Moxy do his ribs on the steering wheel. Work your own jobs, work to your own rules. Work someone else’s and you do it their way. Our rule is, you don’t wear a belt, you don’t operate on the test area.

I do sympathise over the hard hats. We had a manager who wanted blanket hard hats even when operating. I told Him to try wearing one driving his car and he’d soon understand why I was pushing back. Ten years on we aren’t wearing them In machines.

 

[Grahams]

With health and safety common sense and consistancy need applying. I'm big on safety, my dad lost a foot in an industrial accident back in the day. It was pretty grim all round.
But making up new rules every month to fill the monthly health and safety update (as happened when I subbed for Carillion) with no reasoning given (such as orange hi-viz is banned, only yellow now allowed) gives health and safety a bad name and leads to people dismissing it all as bo******s so they miss the sensible stuff buried amongst the stupid.

 

[Brendan]

Dumpers have always been a awkward one with many injuries avoided or happened due to either wearing one or not. Many will claim to be better able to jump clear.
Personally the 1t hit tip dumpers are probably one of the most dangerous pieces of small plant

 

[Bri963]

Couldn’t agree more. Health and safety departments feel a need to justify their existence, but that again is down to top management not being satisfied with just no accidents or near misses, they want to see something being done. Case in point, a few years ago someone fell through an asbestos roof of one of our plants in the states. Every facility Round the world had a safety stand-down for every employee even though only roofing contractors go on our roofs. Someone in the states turned his forklift over so ours all had to be limited to 4 mph.

 

[Bri963]

Dumpers have always been a awkward one with many injuries avoided or happened due to either wearing one or not. Many will claim to be better able to jump clear.
Personally the 1t hit tip dumpers are probably one of the most dangerous pieces of small plant

Think we posted at the same time, Brendan. I’m with you on this one, but most of us have either seen, experienced or seen film of people being thrown clean over the front or into the steering wheel. Some old heaps of scrap shouldn’t be working on a present day site, but that’s a whole other argument.

When tractor roll frames came in a lot of farmers fitted them to older tractors and there was a rash of people being thrown over the back and either getting injured by or crushed under the frame. Same with small operated plant, but if you’ve got a frame and a seat belt, that’s a big reduction in injuries in itself. For dumpers it’ll be better when they all have cabs - no more crush injuries. I wouldn’t wear one on a mini-ex unless it had a frame for the reason you’re saying,. Small stuff goes over so quickly you’ve got to be quick to jump clear before they go. A lot of it is down to planning jobs properly, then the overturns don’t happen so often.

 

[Monkeybusiness]

Couldn’t agree more. Health and safety departments feel a need to justify their existence, but that again is down to top management not being satisfied with just no accidents or near misses, they want to see something being done. Case in point, a few years ago someone fell through an asbestos roof of one of our plants in the states. Every facility Round the world had a safety stand-down for every employee even though only roofing contractors go on our roofs. Someone in the states turned his forklift over so ours all had to be limited to 4 mph.

Top management pour money into health and safety departments so they don’t ever face the risk of going to prison for corporate manslaughter when someone actually performing a job that earns the business money gets it wrong and dies...
Health and safety departments/operatives constantly come up with new directives and ideas to justify their role so as they have a defensible track record of proactivity which should ultimately keep them out of prison when someone actually performing a job that earns the business money gets it wrong and dies.
(I’m far from anti-health and safety by the way. It is essential that people work in safe environments. I have sadly spent a great deal of time and money jumping through ridiculous HSEQ hoops for clients who are sometimes intent on making the job much harder than it needs to be to tick a box that shouldn’t exist in the first place.)

 

[Bri963]

No employee or subbie should complain because a company wants them to go home in the same condition as when they came in, even if it is ultimately to cover their own backsides. If you’re a contractor you price in the cost of compliance, same as any other business cost. No denying a lot of times it goes over the top, but isn’t that better than going the other way? This one could go round for ever, but we have to deal with the situation as it is, or do like Rory and try to change things in a sensible way.

 

[Smiffy]

Think we posted at the same time, Brendan. I’m with you on this one, but most of us have either seen, experienced or seen film of people being thrown clean over the front or into the steering wheel. Some old heaps of scrap shouldn’t be working on a present day site, but that’s a whole other argument.

When tractor roll frames came in a lot of farmers fitted them to older tractors and there was a rash of people being thrown over the back and either getting injured by or crushed under the frame. Same with small operated plant, if you’ve got a frame and a seat belt, that’s a big reduction in injuries in itself. For dumpers it’ll be better when they all have cabs - no more crush injuries. I wouldn’t wear one on a mini-ex unless it had a frame for the reason you’re saying,. Small stuff goes over so quickly you’ve got to be quick to jump clear before they go. A lot of it is down to planning jobs properly, then the overturns don’t happen so often.

But at the same time there needs to be operator responsibility
There are hundreds of videos on Facebook of hi tips and small minis going over and the vast majority should never have been in that position
So where do draw the line
It's a bit like putting the condom on for a night out before you know if I've pulled.
Seat belts absolutely do have there place and I'm not saying otherwise
I'm just saying that blanket rules further dumb everything down
Also trying to make people responsible and think for themselves will help stop complacency
I'm sure we all know plenty that will just think oh I have a seatbelt on it'll be alright
Rather than taking a step back and think hang on should that machine really be going there in the first place

 

[Bri963]

Think we’re mostly saying the same thing in different ways, Smiffy, As I said in an earlier post, I agree that a lot of exactly what you mention is down to bad planning, untidy sites, poor or non-existent training.

I don’t agree with, or understand you saying that all blanket rules dumb everything down. On our test area the only blanket rules are the sensible ones, for example seat belts. And we don’t change the rules on a weekly basis, either. If it works, we don’t change it. Are there situations where leaving a raised bucket when you get off a machine is a good idea? Are there situations where it’s okay to swing a bucket over someone’s head? (One genius did that to me while I was assessing him for a job - fifteen years experience) Perhaps we should leave that to the operator’s discretion.

This is getting deep for a Saturday night, it almost feels like work!

 

[Smiffy]

Think we’re mostly saying the same thing in different ways, Smiffy, As I said in an earlier post, I agree that a lot of exactly what you mention is down to bad planning, untidy sites, poor or non-existent training.

I don’t agree with, or understand you saying that all blanket rules dumb everything down. On our test area the only blanket rules are the sensible ones, for example seat belts. And we don’t change the rules on a weekly basis, either. If it works, we don’t change it. Are there situations where leaving a raised bucket when you get off a machine is a good idea? Are there situations where it’s okay to swing a bucket over someone’s head? (One genius did that to me while I was assessing him for a job - fifteen years experience) Perhaps we should leave that to the operator’s discretion.

This is getting deep for a Saturday night, it almost feels like work!

Its not all blanket rules but there are a lot that dumb the situation down
Hard hats
Hi Vis
Seat belts
All have there places and I am happy to use them in the right circumstances but I think it should be my choice when I use them
They are control measures after all and if the risk can be removed without them then there is no need for them
Especially when they lead people into a false sense of security

 

[Bri963]

Well I don’t think wearing a seat belt gives anyone a false sense of security, but this could go on forever so we’ll have to agree to disagree and let the popcorn gallery make their own minds up. Fancy a pint?

 

[JD450A]

If you have witnessed a accident involving open framed ROPS and a operator not wearing a belt you very quickly decide seatbelts are f****ng essential in that manner.

I'm still not sold on wearing them in cabbed machines such as diggers. But if required I do.

 

[JD450A]

I love linked in

 

[V8Druid]

I love linked in

could you be Linkedin's first barring

 

[Shovelhands]

How to lose friends and alienate people.....