Farrell - my reference to your newspaper habits was intended as a light-hearted way of providing a link to a recent news story relevant to this post. In hind sight, I'd be slightly offended if someone suggested I read that newspaper, so apologise for my wording.

To be honest, I don't keep track of who says what on these forum. I fully agree that everyone should have an opinion, and I can be a right pain playing devils advocate just to create a discussion. In this case there are clearly some people who are 'for' or 'against' and a number of 'floating.' All I can say is that some companies have done this for decades and feel it is worthwhile. Anyone can say that they would not introduce such a rule in their company but I don't think this is really such an extreme measure that falls into the conkers-bonkers category.

With regard to holding handrails when walking up and down stairs. I know that companies have looked at their accident statistics and found a significant number involve falling on stairs. They have then observed behaviours and noticed that a significant number of people do not hold the handrail. They have tried indirect methods of changing behaviour but found these have limited or short term affect. So they have decided imposing a rule is best. Again, some companies have had this rule for decades.

My company looked at a "reverse parking policy" for our head office car park as this would bring us into line with our european subsiduaries. It was rejected being too much like "big brother and nannying". We have never had an incident or accident in our car parks and speed limits are strictly enforced at all times.
The normal rules of the road apply within our car parks.

I have also experienced the reverse parking policy, however, the parking bays in this case were not skewed and the pedestrian walkway (unprotected) was at the rear of the reversing vehicles.

I personally struggle to see the safety benefits 'in this particular situation' as the drivers are effectively reversing towards an unprotected pedestrian walkway.

I see now that the H&S community is clearly divided into two camps:

Those with the "don't leave the house, the World's a terribly dangerous place, and we're all doomed" brigade.

And

Those who prefer to deal with real issues and not exagerate the risk involved in everyday situations like walking up/down stairs without having to be told how to.

Mmmm,

Risk perceptions, as always, do play a part here. There are a few posts which seem to be from people who work in 'high risk' industries indicating that they think parking is not a hazard worth expending effort on. I don't know whether it is or not, I'd be interested in seeing some comparative figures of injury incidents in works car parks vs say to people working at height. I get the feeling that won't be easy because you can bet that nobody's collating the former, except insurance companies of course.

In general the most hazardous work activity in terms of absolute numbers is driving, with estimates of deaths ranging from 500 - 1,000 per annum. This is accompanied by many thousands of serious injuries, and even more thousands of minor injury and lost property incidents. Car parks are low risk environments where loss of life is concerned (probably, I don't actually know that for sure), but if I was to take the claims history for our smallish fleet, I can tell you now that parking accounts for a very large proportion of our claims; minor paint work and a few dents for sure, but incidents and cost nonetheless.

Keep this in proportion; how many lives have been saved by the WAH regs? And how do we know? What has the cost of WAH been? How much does a reverse parking policy cost? Is it reasonably practicable to implement such a policy? Would it improve safety?

I can't reverse park, so I would hate it, but if my organisation decided to do it I'm sure it would reduce our claims history by an extent, and possibly avoid a fatality,

John

I think we could train people (even me) to reverse park reasonably quickly, and we could reasonably easily do it using a blank car park, only allowing people to use live ammo when they could do it.

And I guess when I say I can't, what I mean is I can (almost anybody can), just that it's uncomfortable for me so I'd rather not, if I had to, I could, after all, I had to do it to pass my test,

John

Contributors here specialising in Construction and Waste Management, denigrating a policy of minimising vehicle reversing manouevres.
I despair.

Yes indeed. Well done Seamus, over 50 responses and almost 1300 views. If only we could drum up the same level of interest for other subjects falling into 'workplace health & safety.'

WOW, there have been a lot of replies to this post. Thanks everyone

I wonder if the solicitor will now ask what checks you made to ensure that the training given by the parents was 'suitable and sufficient' before you allowed him/her to use your stairs

I could`nt agree more, no wonder we get bad press

Thanks for that Steve - see your point.... if we're waiting for the politicians for help then I think we've got a better chance of nailing blancmange to a ceiling, especially in the current finacial crisis which will undoubtedly reign for some years yet.

Safety is about 'us' all taking care of ourselves and looking out for each other - besides if car parking was such an issue why don't IOSH at The Grange insist on a parking policy. Anybody driven in there will know that most days car parking is not the easiest, but can be managed very safely by personal repsonsibility.

Intresting views.