Health and Safety Madness

I found this article through Ambush Predator on Twitter.

This is the headline to this article.

Bungling handyman puts ladder against branch he is sawing off... then sues bosses after breaking his foot

An extract

A handyman fell from a tree in a 'Laurel and Hardy moment' after he sawed off a branch that he had leaned his ladder against - and is now suing his bosses for his mistake.

Peter Aspinall, 64, a part-time handyman at a hotel, had climbed up a ladder to prune a sycamore tree.

But as he had leaned it against the branch he was sawing off instead of the tree trunk, he tumbled to the ground when the branch broke.

Didn't the guy realise where he was putting the ladder and what might happen?

An extract;

Lawyers claimed it had been a 'Laurel and Hardy moment' but the 14ft fall broke Mr Aspinall's heel. He damaged his ligaments and spent 10 days in hospital.

Health and safety officials began investigating and discovered that bosses at the 200-year old Egerton House Hotel near Bolton, Greater Manchester had failed to carry out at a risk assessment.

They said hotel bosses should have given training to workers on where to place the ladder.

'They should of given training on where to place the ladder.' I have two words, COMMON SENSE. Where was this guy's common sense.

An extract;

The 29-bedroom hotel, where rooms cost £69 a night, was fined £1,000 and ordered to pay £1,000 council costs and a £15 victim surcharge by magistrates in Bolton.

It pleaded guilty to breaching health and safety regulations by failing to undertake risk assessments for employees working in the hotel gardens.

I understand having risk assessments for certain companies, eg chemical plants and engineering firms, but training to put a ladder against a tree, oh come on.

No one can be that thick to put a ladder against a branch that you are actually going to cut off. Well this Peter Aspinall guy was.

Health and safety is needed in certain areas, but how long is it till we have to do risk assessments before we do everyday things, like breathing.

Sometimes I feel like if a health and safety officer started talking to me about risk assessments, I will ask him the risk assessment of him being floored by me if he continued to talk rubbish health and safety regulations that is just common sense to the ordinary person.

This is the micro management stupidity that has come in over the last 13 years. Labour has stopped us from being a free thinking people.

I'd hate to think what Britain would be like after 5 more years under Labour.