Going a bit off topic . . .
it's not the health and safety laws that are at fault. It's people misinterpreting them.
(Bitter and Twisted, Wed 3 Nov 2010, 20:21, 1 reply)

This is true.
My job is potentially very dangerous, but my employers are legally obliged to provide a system of accountability, so that any near-misses and accidents are properly reported and the corrective measures (hopefully) prevent them from happening again. The law says nothing about how such a system should be implemented, only that it should be there.

The petty bureaucracy people attribute to the law results from implementors in lower-risk workplaces overestimating the amount and/or severity of potential hazards and completely losing their sense of perspective.
( The Mock TurtIe ™ --- Thinks you are a cunt, on, Wed 3 Nov 2010, 23:05, closed)

I have yet to experience a workplace "accident" which wasn't entirely my own fault.
Didn't matter how many safety measures were in place, my injuries were caused entirely by own inattention to the task at hand.

I'm not convinced of the benefits of formalised H&S, since it didn't stop me hurting myself. On the other hand, a dose of common sense (pay some fucking attention to what I'm doing) would have done.
( flake has nothing against your right leg, Thu 4 Nov 2010, 4:19, closed)