But it's the kit the boss decided was right - therefore it is Ok to do this!!!! We must be aware of the pressures some people are placed under by managers who simply get the cheapest possible. Bob

Oh, I’ve got lots of pictures of this practice taken in the UK (man in excavator bucket at height).

Bob I agree but would go even further, in this age of outsourcing I've seen contracts where the original client did follow the relevant standards and best practice yet are quite happy to allow tenders that clearly have no chance allowing for best practice to be followed to the extent of accepting them. Examples I've come across have included what used to be a 2 man confined spaces job for a LA being tendered and the only contractor who tendered with the 2 man team and best practice lost out to the other contractor who were happy to operate as a 1 man team. So who's ultimately at fault the contractor trying to get the job or the client for screwing the price right down so the only way it can be done is by cutting safey (and other) corners?

Just a thought that they are maybe not even at work! A bit of self help to put up some Xmas decorations? Doesn't justify it but might be part of the reason for it? Would there be a real sense of irony about it if they were using the bucket because "someone" had told them, or they had read somewhere, that you are not allowed to use ladders for such things anymore :) p48

Quite correct boblewis, poor management of the actual work being undertaken is often the root cause of most accidents.

You'll never prevent all dangerous acts, so no point thinking the profession has failed just because such acts still go on. But I also wouldn't call them idiots. Ignorant maybe but not idiots. Most people just don't think it will happen to them. We're all guilty of taking risks like that. Smoking, speeding, fiddling with electrics etc. At some point all of us will think 'oh it'll be alright, I'll be careful'. It's easy to be judgemental and forget that we're all human and therefore all make human errors. I remember in the early 90's when they were culling cows and creating large funeral pyres and on TV there were pictures of 'people' stood in the buckets of telescopic handlers and tractors. I was an agricultural inspector at the time and I asked my boss what the HSE would do about it. He said, nothing, as it wasn't in the public interest. Just like it wasn't in the public interest to pursue MAFF for all the farmers that died falling through the fragiles roofs of their farm buildings, that MAFF paid them clean down. Sometimes you just have to know which battles to fight and to not let the less than perfect world that we live in make you feel like you've failed. Cause you haven't. None of us have. We do what we can and nothing more.

perhaps they thought it was too dangerous to put up the fairy

No I did not get a chance as I could not stop. If I could I would have. It may have been a local authority or residents group as it was on a green area beside some housing but on the public road. Your are all right about supervisors and managers allowing this to happen afterall its not that long ago that the standard means of access in warehouses and stores for most workers was on the forks of a forklift truck! I just thought it had come around where this practice was almost extinct.

Agreed that is it the lack of supervision or poor management that is quite often the cause of accidents and unsafe work practices. But my point is that management / clients etc. will most of the time (in my experience) get away with whatever they can if it saves them a few bob. The chances of getting reprimanded for unsafe work practices has to be higher that the chance of an accident occurring for most employers to take heed of OSH legislative requirements. I think that if employer A was aware that employer B got a large fine or bad rep. for an unsafe act, then employer A would think twice and maybe do things the right way! With little or no regulation (in Ireland anyway), I can see this trend repeating itself with ultimately serious consequences, not just statistically!!