Remember they can kill.

[minimutly]

We did a job in a 6 foot high concrete tunnel in Gosport a few years back; the boss wrote hard hats into the RAMS. Everyone over 5'10" ended up with a stiff neck from all the time they banged their hats on the roof or spent all day walking stooped or twisted to avoid doing so (there was no dange of anything falling). After I kicked off there was eventually a concession for bump caps, which is all that had been needed in the first place.
On the same job someone twisted their ankle stepping off a kerb and another jammed a finger in a door and ended up in hospital after it split like an overcooked sausage. Nothing in the RAMS covered either eventuality, which most people would put down to 'sh** happens' whether at work or home.

Biggest h&s fails is slips trips and falls, followed by fingers hit or trapped by doors.. At least in my business.
However, we have seen legs ripped off, deaths due to asphyxiation or explosion. You cannot leave it to chance or luck, "common sense" etc..

 

[addjunkie]

Biggest h&s fails is slips trips and falls, followed by fingers hit or trapped by doors.. At least in my business.
However, we have seen legs ripped off, deaths due to asphyxiation or explosion. You cannot leave it to chance or luck, "common sense" etc..

I was offshore in the North Sea, and remember a big campaign on the slips trips and falls thing as the days away from work record was lost. Not by folk climbing hundreds of feet up scaffold etc, but by some bint in the office getting her high heel caught in her flowing trousers on the stairs.

Did they ban high heels, no, did they ban flowing trousers in favour of mini skirts no…why not you ask……as it might have led to a sexual discrimination case!

 

[skotl]

I realise I'm just digging up old ground again but the H&S guidance / rules / legislation is all built on previous (almost certainly bad) experiences.
The key point is that not everyone who embarks on something necessarily has the experience that could tell them "definitely do *not* do it that way".

Example: when I fitted the bathroom extractor last week I needed to drill a 108mm core out, 26ft off the ground. If I hadn't already used a core drill that caught (even with a clutch) I probably would have just gone up the ladder.
Instead, I hired a scaffold tower and the couple of times it tried to bite me, I had it.

That's why you wouldn't (or shouldn't!) be allowed to do that at work - other people's misfortunes add to your lived experience. Not all of us are an expert in everything.