Posted By Steven John Nelson Does anyone know where I can find some technical guidance on the above. I am looking for some scientific rationale to justify the use, or not, of safety footwear to protect toes from falling objects. Some jobs will involve the potential for only light objects (ie below a certain weight) to land on ones foot, and the risk is therefore tolerable, and safety footwear is not needed. There will be other activities which will involve heavy (ie above certain weight)which if dropped would cause damage, and therefore - irrespective of the liklihood of contact with foot - safety footwear should be required & provided. Other activities will involve medium weight objects, where the liklihood of contact would need to be assesed (ie how often exposed to objects)before arriving at a conclusion that the risk is intolerable and safety footwear should be required. Furthermore, safety footwear may need to be provided to person more vulnerbale to either dropping things or having foot problems etc. in circumstances when others may not need protection. Surely some technical guidance on this process of risk assessment exsits somewhere. Please, can anyone help ? Regards. PS: I appreciate that safety footwear may be issued to control other risks (eg prevent slips).

Posted By Steven John Nelson Thanks Bob. That is what I am trying to establish, above what weight is there a risk of injury ? Any ideas ?

Posted By Merv Newman If it is any use at all, I do have a photo of a safety shoe trapped under a pedestrian-operated electric pallet truck. The leather is torn showing the shiny steel toe cap. Wearer was unhurt. Since it's Friday : why not try an experiment ? Weigh an empty, small cardboard box and then drop it from 1 meter on your bare foot. Add 10 grammes of something and drop it again (I think alternating feet would be a good idea as the first might just go numb after a while) Keep going up in 10 or 20 gramme increments until you have had enough. For statistical confirmation the experiment should be repeated on your wife, neighbours, relatives and friends. About 100 should give reasonable correlation. Don't try this at home children. It could be dangerous. Merv Do you think this would qualify me for a PhD ? Thinks : Thesis ? Antithesis ?

Posted By Bob Shillabeer Its not about any weight etc, if there is a risk of injury from objects falling onto anyone foot safety footwear is required, There is some guidance somewhere about joules but can't recall where it is. Have you tried the HSE website, its easy to use and full of useful stuff like that.