Don't drop a mercury barometer in Tunbridge Wells!

[62613]

Yesterday I recorded a 25 minute programme I'd written for the Dolgellau Talking Newspaper bi-monthly magazine tape that I produce and present, on the Aberfan disaster.  What's that got to do with anything?

 

Well, 144 people, including 116 children, died because the National Coal Board had no policy regarding tipping, had no oversight, the Mines and Quarries Inspectorate didn't look at the safety of tips because their remit was purely the mining and quarrying, not ancillary activities, and so local managers and workers blithely tipped several million cubic feet of waste over the site of a spring, which was marked on Ordnance Survey maps of the area, and despite the local council raising questions about the safety of the tip so close to Pantglas Junior school three years earlier, the NCB carried on tipping and so when the spring, fuelled by heavy rain, liquefied the waste and caused the landslide, it was because at the time no proper systems of Health and Safety monitoring and vetting were in place.  At the subsequent inquiry the lack of oversight came in for severe criticism despite the NCB initially denying any responsibility and the then chairman, Lord Robens, suggesting on TV that the slip could not have been foreseen.

 

Subsequently the Mines and Quarries Act was amended to include measures to ensure the safety of tips (only the third such legislation worldwide after South Africa and West Germany) but ultimately Barbara Castle set up a group to investigate the whole issue of Health and Safety which led to the Health and Safety Act.  In a spectacular display of brass neck the investigative commission leading to the act was chaired by the same Lord Robens whose testimony to the Aberfan inquiry had been requested to be removed from consideration - by the Coal Board's own Barrister.

 

The real point is it is NOT "Health and Safety" that is "ruining" the country.  If proper Health and Safety procedures had been in place in Aberfan in 1966 116 children, their teachers and neighbours, would all be alive today, have made contributions to society and be raising families themselves.  They were wiped out by a cavalier attitude, the "we've always done it this way and we know best" attitude, and, in the words of the inquiry "bungling incompetence" by men doing their jobs.  Health and safety has saved lives.  End of.  What people are wrongly calling "health and safety" when talking about the "loss of common sense" is something more pernicious, driven by money, and for whom the so-called Great British Public, who collectively sometimes demonstrate a denseness that could generate a Black Hole, are responsible.  The increasing use of Ambulance chasing lawyers to "get compo" whenever something goes slightly off plan.  That has led to corporate and public sector insurers to become increasingly risk averse in a knee-jerk reaction.  One of my last problems I had to deal with before retirement involved a case where an elderly woman had slipped slightly getting of a Council owned minibus, hurting her ankle.  She was dealt with by the volunteer driver, and was happy it was just a stumble and couldn't be helped.  However, one of her daughters contacted (against the wishes of the elderly lady) an ambulance chasing lawyer, whose claim was robustly defended successfully as all due precautions were in place, thanks to risk-assessments and training, but it didn't stop the insurers introducing more restrictions on our use of volunteer drivers, which in some cases led to drivers leaving and services being curtailed.  So, where "health and safety" is being used by lazy or mendacious journalists looking to sneer and denigrate health and safety in the UK, stop and think.  It's more likely your colleagues and neighbours trying to get free cash for tripping over their shadows by suing someone causing the insurers to introduce more onerous conditions, or people reacting in a knee jerk reaction, than any official "health and safety" edict.

Not just Aberfan; I thought the original Health & safety at Work Act came about as the result of the explosion at Flixborough, which was caused by poor practice in repairing a pipe carrying hot MEK. Several of the plant. workers were killed

[Fat Controller]

Flixborough was some eight years after Aberfan.

28 people were killed at Flixborough, and 36 seriously injured. There were only 72 on site at the time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flixborough_disaster makes for a sobering read.

[brianusa]

It is doubtful if anyone would complain about industrial safety; its the petty, little annoyances that are encountered and as RM is basically a railway themed website, things like handrails surrounding signals and railings installed where a wire fence was perfectly adequate ever since there was a railway.

 

Brian.

[Coryton]

 So, where "health and safety" is being used by lazy or mendacious journalists looking to sneer and denigrate health and safety in the UK, stop and think.  It's more likely your colleagues and neighbours trying to get free cash for tripping over their shadows by suing someone causing the insurers to introduce more onerous conditions, or people reacting in a knee jerk reaction, than any official "health and safety" edict.

 

What I do find interesting is the very different levels of safety required in rail and road transport in the UK.

 

There are many public footpaths that cross dual carriageways with cars travelling at motorway speeds. Whereas level crossings are being closed down on safety grounds, the only precaution required to protect pedestrians from traffic at 70+ mph is a sign warning drivers of pedestrians crossing. Where else in the UK would it be legal for people to pass directly in front of fast moving machinery without it being locked out of use first?

 

A month or so ago I got off a train and found a van completely blocking the pavement. Anyone coming down the pavement just in time to catch the train had a choice of missing it or wading out into traffic on a busy A road.

 

Who did the van belong to? Network Rail. From what I've read here Network Rail takes health and safety very seriously, but apparently passengers only have to be kept safe on railway property, not just outside it.

[PatB]

Many aspects of road transport are remarkably unregulated. Let's face it, the majority of the general public are allowed, with very little training and oversight, to operate complex machinery weighing up to 4.5T, at speeds up to 70 mph, in a largely uncontrolled and unpredictable environment. Furthermore, they are allowed, again without training or oversight, to fuel this machinery with toxic and flammable fluids, at least some of which generate explosive fumes at common ambient temperatures. The remarkable thing is not that such a system kills a large number of people every year; it is that it does not kill more (which, of course, it used to, improvements having been largely due to better engineering rather than better behaviour by the public).

 

On the subject of Wombat's post, even now, in developed countries, some astonishing lapses occur. A few years ago, here in WA, a scandal broke involving lead contamination of a town resulting from large quantities off lead carbonate (IIRC) dust being blown from stockpiles and conveyors at the nearby port. A few months afterwards I had business at the port (unrelated matter and different client company) and saw what had been going on. IMHO the whole situation made escape of the lead not only possible but inevitable, and blindingly obviously so to anyone with an IQ exceeding that of a stick of celery. Also IMHO, those responsible got off far too lightly under the circumstances.

[MarkC]

A little known nasty with HF is it is used in the vulcanising of the more specialist Nitrile rubber O rings, and rubber balls, rather than the simpler rubber types, it renders them more stable and heat proof, but if a ring is accidentally over heated, and it the touches skin, the heat and the acid cuts flesh dramatically, and it is difficult to stop the burn. I seem to remember it has to reach over 400c.

 

The same effect comes from PTFE, if overheated, and PTFE dust is known to cause problems in a workshop if it allowed smoking, the end of the ciggie was  hot enough to cause a reaction and the fumes go straight to the lungs, so do not smoke near any machining of PTFE plastic, it makes a killer even worse and quicker!

 

Stephen.

 

Yes indeed - many O-rings used in marine engines are of this type, and OEM spares suppliers at least do put warning notices in the packaging ("Ali Baba" style spares producers tend not to, but that's for a different thread...), but I still have to regularly discuss such matters with my staff during pre-overhaul briefings. It scares me at how many ship's Engineers don't know about the potential hazards of these seemingly simple components...

[jjb1970]

The Health and Safety at Work Act etc Act 1974 followed the Robens Report, both the Act itself and the Robens Report are in my view exemplary examples of the legislative process. However I do think a lot of H&S has lost its way in the intervening years. I may rock the boat here but one of the problems in my view is the rise of H&S professionals, at one time H&S people were engineers, operations staff etc with a detailed technical knowledge that went into H&S, many H&S people now know about hard hat safety but have no idea about the industries within which they work. And sadly it often shows.

[jjb1970]

Not just Aberfan; I thought the original Health & safety at Work Act came about as the result of the explosion at Flixborough, which was caused by poor practice in repairing a pipe carrying hot MEK. Several of the plant. workers were killed

 

I think you may be getting confused with the COMAH regulations.