Health and Safety Myths

Stop Celebrating, Stop Eating and mind the Flowers, they’re dangerous…

Few industries suffer from quite as many myths as health & Safety.

Every time something is taken down, removed or “banned” it is instantly without question blamed on Health & Safety, the truth is these usually isolated incidents stem from an individuals knee jerk reaction within an organization to something they are not properly informed about.

For example, a local council hurriedly took down it’s hanging baskets for fear of the lamp posts they were attached to toppling over. The local press reported that of course it was Health & Safety gone mad.

In truth it turned out that the lampposts were very old and not in the best condition, a local council worker panicked and had them removed to avoid possible injury to members of the public from falling hanging baskets followed by the posts holding them up. From a health & Safety point of view this is probably an overly cautious reaction to a low risk, surely having some flowers in a town is good for your health?

And as for celebrating Christmas the act of putting up Christmas decorations is entirely too dangerous for the average office worker, surely they have been banned from offices countrywide because of fears they could prove a Health & Safety risk?

No, of course not as with most things a little common sense goes a long way, the Health & Safety Executive would just say that the use of secure set of step ladders when hanging decorations overhead would be a better and safer idea than using your office wheelie chair to stand on, wouldn’t it?

Lastly, have you ever thought when finishing off the last bite of  your fairground candy floss, “…this stick my candy floss came wrapped around is very dangerous, why have the Health & Safety Executive not banned this…” no?, didn’t think so.

This is another myth relating to the decline in candy floss being wrapped around it’s traditional wooden stick, the truth is that putting candy floss in a plastic bag is just cheaper, that’s all.

So as you can see most of what people believe to be incidents of Health & Safety gone mad are just harmless myths, the HSE say them selves “…health and safety is about saving lives, not stopping them.”

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