Good Post Willis
Hope to see you posting more of the same, we need people like you on this forum with your expertise.
WHAT AN UTTERLY DEPRESSING THREAD THIS IS.
Dave,
At first I thought your post was 'tongue in cheek' but now I realise you're serious
WE DO NOT NEED MORE AND MORE REGULATIONS.
The more regulations you have, the less people think for themselves. Certainly using ladders is dangerous, but the way to address the danger is for people to be aware and to THINK about what they're doing. You can't legislate against stupidity, and overwhelming people with ever more detailed and constraining regulations has the opposite effect, it encourages people to ignore practical considerations because 'the regulations' tell you what to do in any given situation.
THERE WILL ALWAYS BE THE SITUATION WHICH ISN'T COVERED BY REGULATIONS and then the unfortunate individual, so used to being wrapped in the cotton wool of regulations will do something silly because he isn't trained to consider the consequences of his actions.
I learned this job long before there was any H&S, WFP or any of todays innovations. The company I worked for insisted I spent the first week with an experienced shiner who taught me everything he knew and that included a thorough grounding in the safe way to use a ladder, and the way to work out FOR MYSELF if what I was proposing to do was safe.
THIS TRAINING WAS THE RESULT OF YEARS OF 'HANDS ON' EXPERIENCE TEMPERED BY CAREFULLY THOUGHT OUT IDEAS RESULTING ENTIRELY FROM THAT EXPERIENCE.
No amount of hypothetical work is of any value in the face of real experience.
My solution to the problem of deaths/injury resulting from the misuse of ladders in the infinitely varied situations we meet every day is that any organisation employing people to work on ladders must have access to training provided by people with not less than five years ACTUAL PRACTICAL EXPERIENCE in the use of ladders, and in the case of window cleaning that means splay-bottomed points, and must be able to demonstrate that their employees have received that training and subsequently been assessed as to their ability to understand and implement it.
In this case actual practical experience means constant daily use, not just the odd bit of ladder work as part of another job.
For sole trader, self employed people with only themselves as their responsibility, identical training should be available, and publicised through the forums and trade associations to give everyone the opportunity of acquiring proper training BUT NOT NECESSARILY COMPULSORY - if people want to kill themsleves, that's their prerogative provided they don't endanger anyone else.
I DO NOT, AND NEVER WILL BELIEVE THAT ANY TRAINING 'EXPERT' WITH HOWEVER MANY YEARS OF ACADEMIC LEARNING IS QUALIFIED TO DICTATE HOW PEOPLE IN THE PRACTICAL WORLD SHOULD ADDRESS THE EVERDAY HAZARDS THEY MEET IN THE COURSE OF THEIR WORK.
One example: as far as I am aware the H&S do not accept that window cleaners ladders are fit or safe for use in window cleaning. How do they know? Have they ever consulted any real window cleaner with many years experience and drawn meaningful comparisons between 'general' open ended ladders and 'specialist' window cleaning ladders? I think not, otherwise they would have to accept that a tool which was devised by real, experienced tradespeople for their own increased safety long before most of todays H&S were born must have relevance and value.
I can't speak for other trades/industries, but I think I am entitled to speak for our own and I maintain that today's H&S is NOT about striving to increase safety, it is a regime grown out of a lucrative 'box ticking' industry that is concerned with demonstrating its own necessity to the point where it positively discriminates against nearly a hundred years of solid, relevant experience in order to justify its existence and its authority to extract revenue from the industry.
I don't expect much sympathy with my point of view, but I do believe that unless we start to make our voices heard this culture will spread across our society to the point where all individual thought and choice will be suppressed by an ever increasing industry of regulation - it is self propagating and is becoming ever harder to control. Soon it will control us.