Goods in personal are another one of my pet hates.
The phrase they have been saying to me these last few weeks is Hi ViZ.
They also seem to think I may not be able to understand so they pull at the lapels on their own HI VIZ to show me what they mean.
I hate Hi Viz , I hate the reason we wear it and the reason we try to enforce it all on to others. I hate seeing politicions wearing them on walk abouts at factory’s and building sites.
I saw a picture of an empty government swine flu center in the papers yesterday and the advisors were all wearing Hi Viz , Why ? it was empty , they were sitting down , inside !
I can see the need for them in some places of course , but I hate the santimonious way that pimple faced security guards clutch there HI viz vest between their fingers and go " Hi Viz mate !" .
I even hate writing the words Hi Viz vest!.
Hard hats in fields,thats another one.Quite often when you watch Time Team on the TV they are in the middle of nowhere digging up broken plates in a muddy field wearing hard hats…why?
They are a scourge on society, wherever you go there are people in nondescript jobs wearing hi viz and hard hats. I just looked out of my window and saw seven people wearing them.
One was a woman who works in the shoe shop retrieving her bin after the refuse truck emptied it, she had to wheel it up the footpath about 6 feet.
Two are the bin men themselves, another is a postman who also has health and safety approved shorts, A DHL van driver with day glow romper suit, a pensioner on an electric buggy driving up the footpath and a kid of about 18 filling a skip with rubbish from next doors building project.
All my hi vis kit gets put in my locker on finishing my shift and doesn’t see the light of day till i’m next on duty. Am I excused from the rant as I have to wear it on the motorway?
Hi-Viz is now so common place that I am beginning to actually miss it, it no longer means danger or hazard as everyone wears them everywhere all the time
Obviously you lot don’t do much other than sit in the cab. In most haulage situations you find lots of ways to bang your head or get run over by blind car drivers. Any time you get in the back of the truck you risk falling and banging your head. Even opening the doors on the back of a curtain-sider can be risky if the load has shifted and it falls out forcing the door to suddenly whack you one. Just having a look under a flatbed trailer can result in you hitting your head on a roping hook or the steel frame. Even in an empty lorry park you could slip and fall on your arse, banging your head. That’s why you’re supposed to wear a chinstrap to keep the hard hat on.
Or you could be roping up next to a ■■■■ who thinks it’s clever to chuck the heavy part of the ratchet over the trailer when strapping down a load.
I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve banged my head while wearing a hard hat, and if I hadn’t been wearing it it would have been painful. When I first started doing supermarket work I felt exposed without a hard hat on. In another job for the agency I felt naked without a hard hat just walking around the yard, and was almost relieved when I read their site notice and found that actually, everybody should have been wearing them.
If a site has a rule about wearing safety gear, it’s not coz they want to ■■■■ you off, it’s because they have a legal responsibility to do everything in their power to prevent accidents. Sure their insurance won’t pay out if you have an accident and you weren’t wearing the gear, but the firm will also be prosecuted for not ensuring you were wearing it.
This is the trouble with the public perception of any successful safety measure. When it’s working right, you don’t see the need for it, so you wonder why you bother. If the papers were full of death and injury reports you would want something done. How many deaths and serious injuries are prevented by using these precautions ? Probably thousands per year, but because they don’t happen you don’t hear about them doing their job.
It’s a bit of clothing not a statement of your lack of virility. Grow up.
I used to live in a country were NOBODY has to use HIVIZ.
from the point of drivin a lorry - its good for us on site, its good for bikers, its good for road workers.
indeed funny thing when you see a tie guy in hiviz, glasses, and a helmet crossing the parking or in the magazines “trucking” etc - uou see the desk gay tring to show you how to work or how proffesional he is.
The Highway Man:
All my hi vis kit gets put in my locker on finishing my shift and doesn’t see the light of day till i’m next on duty. Am I excused from the rant as I have to wear it on the motorway?
Your fine on the motorway , its a neccesity espc in this horrendous rain , but not for getting your burger king !!
smoker:
Obviously you lot don’t do much other than sit in the cab. In most haulage situations you find lots of ways to bang your head or get run over by blind car drivers. Any time you get in the back of the truck you risk falling and banging your head. Even opening the doors on the back of a curtain-sider can be risky if the load has shifted and it falls out forcing the door to suddenly whack you one. Just having a look under a flatbed trailer can result in you hitting your head on a roping hook or the steel frame. Even in an empty lorry park you could slip and fall on your arse, banging your head. That’s why you’re supposed to wear a chinstrap to keep the hard hat on.
Or you could be roping up next to a [zb] who thinks it’s clever to chuck the heavy part of the ratchet over the trailer when strapping down a load.
I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve banged my head while wearing a hard hat, and if I hadn’t been wearing it it would have been painful. When I first started doing supermarket work I felt exposed without a hard hat on. In another job for the agency I felt naked without a hard hat just walking around the yard, and was almost relieved when I read their site notice and found that actually, everybody should have been wearing them.
I didnt rant about hard hats ! , and I didnt say hi vfizdidnt have its merits, I did say I hate the way they talk to you and insist on them in nonsense situations like sitting at a desk waiting for a consultation or driving around an RDC in a 26 tonne truck with my hazards on.
I resent the fact that I am invisible when Im stood at a goods in Window with my notes in my hand but I suddenly stand out and am worthy of notice when I omit to wear one for a split sec between leaving my wagon and getting to said window.
Read the posts properly if you want to comment and insult the poster with remarks of growing up please.
If a site has a rule about wearing safety gear, it’s not coz they want to ■■■■ you off, it’s because they have a legal responsibility to do everything in their power to prevent accidents. Sure their insurance won’t pay out if you have an accident and you weren’t wearing the gear, but the firm will also be prosecuted for not ensuring you were wearing it.
This is the trouble with the public perception of any successful safety measure. When it’s working right, you don’t see the need for it, so you wonder why you bother. If the papers were full of death and injury reports you would want something done. How many deaths and serious injuries are prevented by using these precautions ? Probably thousands per year, but because they don’t happen you don’t hear about them doing their job.
It’s a bit of clothing not a statement of your lack of virility. Grow up.
The Highway Man:
All my hi vis kit gets put in my locker on finishing my shift and doesn’t see the light of day till i’m next on duty. Am I excused from the rant as I have to wear it on the motorway?
Your fine on the motorway , its a neccesity espc in this horrendous rain , but not for getting your burger king !!
Went diving with a health and safety man,he said it was licence to print money,as he would go in to a factory or other business,and say they will need to do this,and do that,citing new and upcoming laws.Ironically,when on a dive trip to the scuttled 2nd World war German navy fleet in the Scapa Flow,a BT engineer quoted similar apparels,on the basis of once a line is on,it was a rip off to new phone customers.With additional charges that are added on once the phone is installed.
blueroom1:
I didnt rant about hard hats ! , and I didnt say hi vfizdidnt have its merits, I did say I hate the way they talk to you and insist on them in nonsense situations like sitting at a desk waiting for a consultation or driving around an RDC in a 26 tonne truck with my hazards on.
I resent the fact that I am invisible when Im stood at a goods in Window with my notes in my hand but I suddenly stand out and am worthy of notice when I omit to wear one for a split sec between leaving my wagon and getting to said window.
Read the posts properly if you want to comment and insult the poster with remarks of growing up please.
Where did I say I was talking to you ?
All I pointed out was these things are useful, if you don’t like that - fine. It’s not my head, and it won’t be my family having to deal with the consequences.
As for the grow up thing, a bunch of grown men complaining about a little vest - do me a favour.
Wheel Nut:
Its a good job the Europeans are a lot more careful when alighting from trailers or crawling about under trailers.
Natural selection was a good idea from Neil Hobbs
Yeah, natural selection includes being killed by a numpty who didn’t see you or drops something heavy on your head. I’ve been run over by a forklift before. I wasn’t wearing hi-viz or a safety hat, but thank god I had steelies on or I would have no feet now. Shall I start a thread where we can all complain about having to wear safety boots ? Or should we all die because of someone elses mistake ?
When push comes to shove and you get mashed by a trailer will you wish you had done everything in your power to avoid that situation, will you regret not wearing safety gear ? Personally I would rather take all the reasonable precautions I can. I like living. ■■■■■■■■ about a yellow vest or a hard hat seems silly.
“Every three-and-a-half minutes somebody in the EU dies from work-related causes and every four-and-a-half seconds an EU worker is involved in an accident that forces them to stay at home for at least three working days"
We very much welcome any reduction in the number of workers being fatally injured and the fact that the number for 2009/09 is a record low.
“There is inevitably variation in the figures year on year, but we can take heart from the fact that Great Britain consistently has fewer fatal injuries than comparable industrialised nations in the rest of Europe.
Every year, about 5,500 people are killed in workplace incidents across the European Union. There are over 4.5 million incidents that result in more than three days absence from work, which adds up to around 146 million working days lost.
The UK total deaths for 2008 was about 190 people. You tell me - should we give up safe practices ?
Since the donning of the pesky hi-viz is now a ‘fashion norm’ why do we seem to tolerate not being shown the Risk Assessments within our areas/notice boards/briefings, etc that possibly dictates the compulsion to wear them?
The law says they are a legal necessity within all working environments - in fact they are higher up the H&S hierarchy chain than a piddling vest …so my suggestion is the next time some jobsworth shrieks ‘hi-viz’ at you, ask where the requisite Risk Assessment relating to it is: The confused ones will remain confused (so ignore them - although the law requires them to assist you find it) but the switched-on ones should realise how stupid they look and will indicate to us their dumb complicity within the half-baked systems the poor fools are playing at…
Hi viz vests can be a pain in the arse but in some circumstances be very useful. I only wear them if i am told to or if i am loading on a road, due to fact that my polo shirt is the same colour as the truck.
I never drive in them as they come off as soon as i get in the cab.
On motorways or major trunk roads Hi viz clothing is essential, especially in bad weather.
