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I keep seeing references to 'Common Sense' like this from the British Safety Council "Ladders are a versatile and invaluable piece of workplace equipment, but, like all other forms of access equipment, there are some common sense rules for using them safely, and it’s all about sensible and proportionate management of the risks, which HSE’s new guidance spells out."
If it was common sense you wouldn't need to mention it at all. I don't like the HSE's refernces to common sense. Common sense is neither measurable nor reliable, it's learned, not innate, and only relevant to familiar environments - would good old British 'common sense' keep you alive in South Sudan? An employer can subvert most people's 'common sense' with threats or money anyway. The Daily Mail may want to see a return of 'common sense' instead of legislation, but that's because they probably espouse 'survival of the fittest' social Darwinism.
What do you think? Should safety professionals be validating the concept of common sense where safety is concerned?
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Well as I've just sat in H&S Meeting where people were asking for and getting quite passionate about having signs telling people to not walk in the road around site and beware vehicles moving (it is a logistics warehouse after all) I would say common sense has gone the way of the Dodo!
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Absolutely agree; nowadays for example it's 'only common sense' that a wife has a right to a share of the property in a marriage contract, that wasn't the case in 1800. Common sense is mutable, it's also an excuse for lack of thought. I don't use the term and my documents don't either,
John
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"Common sense", has nothing to do with our profession. It's a misnomer, subjective and a lazy analysis where applied.
It's a phrase that I don't like (you might have figured that out already) as it belittles the work we do, if not the qualifications we earned to get here.
Mick
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'common sense ' is weasel phrase that means nothing but can be used as an excuse to to do nothing
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The problem with common sense is that its not all that common!
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I agree will all of the above posts - after all it's only common sense to do so!
Rich
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You only need to examine the ways people find to kill and maim themselves and others, to see it's a very rare quality.
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Common sense: a basic ability to perceive, understand, and judge things, which is shared by ("common to") nearly all people, and can be reasonably expected of nearly all people without any need for debate
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Common sense is an absolute in our role in my honest opinion. In order to not tie things up in bureaucratic knots you need to apply some common sense to the letter of the law, to the projects and to life in general. Most of our problems arise from people that, frankly, have no common sense and then you have to proceduralise those items that they come into contact with.
As an example: I was called to our sister organisation because they had some audit problems to solve. One was that they had no rescue plan from the flat roof in the event of an emergency and because the entrance to the roof was very small, it was regarded as our parent company as a "confined space" for rescue purposes. Well, the elaborate lengths they were going to at the time to draw up plans, have rope ladders and stretchers on the roof with pulley systems to lower an injured person down to ground floor level - it was a huge project. When I got there I applied "common sense" to the issue and told them to make the door to the roof larger - full size in fact. This now ceases to be a confined space and all the work they put in was unnecessary.
So, yes, common sense is time and money saving if used in conjunction with the law to produce a workable and streamlined management system.
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safetydude1957 wrote:Common sense: a basic ability to perceive, understand, and judge things, which is shared by ("common to") nearly all people, and can be reasonably expected of nearly all people without any need for debate
Which is it's weakness ..."without a need for debate", which goes against the spirit of risk assessment and making judgements based on knowledge and information. Relying just on common sense is like relying on "gut instinct"; great until it all goes wrong and then you can see( with hindsight) that it was not common sense after all.
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I would suggest that the ability to be pragmatic and proportionate in relation to H&S is more important than the ability to apply common sense. As others have already stated, it's often neither common nor sensible.
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hilary wrote:Common sense is an absolute in our role in my honest opinion. In order to not tie things up in bureaucratic knots you need to apply some common sense to the letter of the law, to the projects and to life in general. Most of our problems arise from people that, frankly, have no common sense and then you have to proceduralise those items that they come into contact with.
As an example: I was called to our sister organisation because they had some audit problems to solve. One was that they had no rescue plan from the flat roof in the event of an emergency and because the entrance to the roof was very small, it was regarded as our parent company as a "confined space" for rescue purposes. Well, the elaborate lengths they were going to at the time to draw up plans, have rope ladders and stretchers on the roof with pulley systems to lower an injured person down to ground floor level - it was a huge project. When I got there I applied "common sense" to the issue and told them to make the door to the roof larger - full size in fact. This now ceases to be a confined space and all the work they put in was unnecessary.
So, yes, common sense is time and money saving if used in conjunction with the law to produce a workable and streamlined management system.
Hello Hilary, how can your solution be 'common sense' if if seems only to have been 'common' to you? To me, it's just clear and creative thinking in order to achieve a good solution to a problem. It's very far removed from 'common sense'. In any case, the concept of common sense has no place in health and safety management in my opinion.
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safetydude1957 wrote:Common sense: a basic ability to perceive, understand, and judge things, which is shared by ("common to") nearly all people, and can be reasonably expected of nearly all people without any need for debate
Exactly. Basic common sense probably only encompasses being frightened by loud noises, high edges, and fast animals with large pointy bits. In which case that is more instinct than anything else anyway.
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A case in point, the latest busted myth from the HSE ..
Case 282 - School garden bans cane supports for plants due to health and safety
Issue
" The enquirer’s wife works as a Teaching Assistant at a local Primary School. One of her duties is to look after the school garden and bamboo canes are being used to support runner bean plants. One of the school govenors has stated that for 'Health and Safety' reasons all the canes must have a ping pong ball on the end. This is so the children don't trip and impail themselves on the canes.
Panel decision
There is no health and safety law which specifies cane toppers as a requirement but the Royal Horticultural Society guidance recommends their use on canes which are lower than 1.8 metres high to avoid the risk of eye injuries. The decision to use cane toppers in a school garden therefore seems sensible but it is a pity that it was represented as a "health and safety requirement" rather than plain old common sense! "
The HSE's response reads more like a Daily Mail articlette than a serious response to a safety query. Also, there is no mention of the School Govenor banning anything except in the daft headline, seems to me she was doing the right thing by recommending the ping pong balls - it's not at all 'common sense', simply GOOD sense. This should not even be in the myth busters list, the school should be praised in my opinion.
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I quote an accident we have had on our site a couple of years ago where "common sense" was not applied every time "common sense" is quoted to me
Supervisor unlocking and opening a hatch and using his hand to release a jammed vice despite being told not to touch it - result, deep cuts to his fingers
As for the school. If the governor had simply said that "it would be a good idea if we put ping pong balls on the bamboo canes because we know kids are bound to run around and are likely to fall over and they could hurt themselves" I am sure that everyone would have agreed. We have toppers on our canes as we have a 2 year old grandson who likes to explore and does not always look where he is going!
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Interesting example Silddx
I've just entered my 6th decade, I've been a gardener most of my life (started very young when is was unfashionable).
I've been involved in H&S most of my working life.
Yet only 10 years ago, after nearly prodding my eye out, did I attain the common sense to cover cane ends.
It was an excellent recommendation - personally I use Champagne corks
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walker wrote: - personally I use Champagne corks
Love it!
Personally, I use bespoke made canes out of carbon fibre capped-off (mounted) with large diamonds!
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SP900308 wrote:walker wrote: - personally I use Champagne corks
Love it!
Personally, I use bespoke made canes out of carbon fibre capped-off (mounted) with large diamonds!
Did you get the diamonds from a fence?
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My attempt at defining common sense would be something along the lines of ...
A reasonable level of assumed knowledge gained by a combination of life experience and particular working/industrial knowledge (for your particular industry) - of which it would be reasonable for you to know AND which a large proportion of your peers would reasonably expect you to know given your experience.
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David68 wrote:
As for the school. If the governor had simply said that "it would be a good idea if we put ping pong balls on the bamboo canes because we know kids are bound to run around and are likely to fall over and they could hurt themselves" I am sure that everyone would have agreed.
From what I can tell from the HSE's myth busters report, that's what the school govenor. Only the HSE seem to have decided it was a 'ban'.
Don't get me wrong, the myth busters panel is excellent but this particular reply seems sensationalist and amateurish.
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David68 wrote:
As for the school. If the governor had simply said that "it would be a good idea if we put ping pong balls on the bamboo canes because we know kids are bound to run around and are likely to fall over and they could hurt themselves" I am sure that everyone would have agreed.
I don't see any reason to assume they said otherwise. The governors meeting could easily have asid "Canes should have toppers on them", and find that's reported as "governor says canes must have toppers on them".
Yet again, however, someone comes up with a sane and sensible measure that is entirely about safety, and the HSE panel opens with "there is no law that requires ...". If a child did lose an eye on a garden cane, would HSE inspector be saying "oh well, there's no law that mandates ping pong balls on garden canes, so the school is obviously blameless".
I think not.
It's more likely that they'd be making statements like "A nine-year-old boy has suffered an injury that will affect him for the rest of his life because of the failings of the charity which runs the school." That being a quote from http://press.hse.gov.uk/...s-finger-in-school-door/ . I observe that I don't think there's any specific law that explicitly requires hinge protectors on doors in schools either.
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JJ Prendergast wrote:My attempt at defining common sense would be something along the lines of ...
A reasonable level of assumed knowledge gained by a combination of life experience and particular working/industrial knowledge (for your particular industry) - of which it would be reasonable for you to know AND which a large proportion of your peers would reasonably expect you to know given your experience.
But is common sense reliable and measurable? Can you use 'absence or dereliction of common sense' as your legal defence after an accident?
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achrn wrote:David68 wrote:
As for the school. If the governor had simply said that "it would be a good idea if we put ping pong balls on the bamboo canes because we know kids are bound to run around and are likely to fall over and they could hurt themselves" I am sure that everyone would have agreed.
I don't see any reason to assume they said otherwise. The governors meeting could easily have asid "Canes should have toppers on them", and find that's reported as "governor says canes must have toppers on them".
Yet again, however, someone comes up with a sane and sensible measure that is entirely about safety, and the HSE panel opens with "there is no law that requires ...". If a child did lose an eye on a garden cane, would HSE inspector be saying "oh well, there's no law that mandates ping pong balls on garden canes, so the school is obviously blameless".
I think not.
It's more likely that they'd be making statements like "A nine-year-old boy has suffered an injury that will affect him for the rest of his life because of the failings of the charity which runs the school." That being a quote from http://press.hse.gov.uk/...s-finger-in-school-door/ . I observe that I don't think there's any specific law that explicitly requires hinge protectors on doors in schools either.
Bang on! That's precisely what I'm thinking.
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quote=silddx]A case in point, the latest busted myth from the HSE ..
Case 282 - School garden bans cane supports for plants due to health and safety
Issue
" The enquirer’s wife works as a Teaching Assistant at a local Primary School. One of her duties is to look after the school garden and bamboo canes are being used to support runner bean plants. One of the school govenors has stated that for 'Health and Safety' reasons all the canes must have a ping pong ball on the end. This is so the children don't trip and impail themselves on the canes.
Panel decision
There is no health and safety law which specifies cane toppers as a requirement but the Royal Horticultural Society guidance recommends their use on canes which are lower than 1.8 metres high to avoid the risk of eye injuries. The decision to use cane toppers in a school garden therefore seems sensible but it is a pity that it was represented as a "health and safety requirement" rather than plain old common sense! "
The HSE's response reads more like a Daily Mail articlette than a serious response to a safety query. Also, there is no mention of the School Govenor banning anything except in the daft headline, seems to me she was doing the right thing by recommending the ping pong balls - it's not at all 'common sense', simply GOOD sense. This should not even be in the myth busters list, the school should be praised in my opinion.
I agree, some of the panels responses are pathetic in my opinion.
Their favourite is "there is no specific health and safety law that prevents or specifies ......"
Of course their isn't, we moved away from prescriptive legislation years ago at the insistence of the HSE, maybe someone forgot to tell the panel.
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Dazzling Puddock wrote:
I agree, some of the panels responses are pathetic in my opinion.
Their favourite is "there is no specific health and safety law that prevents or specifies ......"
Of course their isn't, we moved away from prescriptive legislation years ago at the insistence of the HSE, maybe someone forgot to tell the panel.
Yeh exactly. It's about assessing risk and deciding reasonably practicable precautions right? That's the law. The school govenor did a good job of that.
Seems to me there aren't many calls to the panel and so they scrape the barrel bottom now and again. Maybe they need to publicise it more, but that takes time and cash and they have none.
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#23 silddx
I think its called 'so far as is reasonably practicable'
For a considered opinion by experts, of what is reasonable in a given situation.
Safety doesn't have to be 100% guaranteed - hence why I dislike safety programmes aiming for zero accidents - its not possible to achieve and not required by English law.
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JJ Prendergast wrote:#23 silddx
I think its called 'so far as is reasonably practicable'
For a considered opinion by experts, of what is reasonable in a given situation.
Safety doesn't have to be 100% guaranteed - hence why I dislike safety programmes aiming for zero accidents - its not possible to achieve and not required by English law.
And as low as reasonably practicable. I hate that zero harm nonsense too. Had arguments at my last employer about implementing a zero harm campaign, total crap IMO. But there's another thread about ZH :)
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IMHO You can have zero accidents, and zero harm. However, where they should really be used is as GOALS and not TARGETS. If as a safety professional you do not believe in these as goals, you are in the wrong job, in my view. I find that many safety professionals don't understand the difference between goals and targets in this context.
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Rubbish.
I'm just realistic.
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Pikeman wrote:IMHO You can have zero accidents, and zero harm. However, where they should really be used is as GOALS and not TARGETS. If as a safety professional you do not believe in these as goals, you are in the wrong job, in my view. I find that many safety professionals don't understand the difference between goals and targets in this context.
Yes, great shout!
Agree completely, and of course zero harm can be achieved.
However,.............Insist on a zero harm policy, get a maximum lying policy!
As for "common sense".........I,m sure the HSE will accept that as mitigation following a major incident!
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I hope all the professionals posting here know the difference between goals and targets, but for some companies it really is silly, yes silly, to have a ZERO HARM goal.
I know a large construction company who have a ZERO HARM 'policy', this is what their safety policy said in 2008
'We..... are committed to achieving Zero Harm - zero fatalities and zero permanently disabling injuries - across our businesses by 2012.
But their problem is they are a huge company, doing hazardous construction/road/railways jobs every day and they will have accidents every week, including to members of the public, and their history lists fatalities every year.
Zero Harm .... they have said 'In 2014 and beyond, our Zero Harm goals of zero fatalities, zero disabling injuries, zero injuries to members of the public and zero new cases of long term harm to health, will remain.....
Yet the company report says 'In 2013, in response to an unacceptable level of fatalities, serious injuries and near misses, we initiated work on implementing our Global Safety Principles.
and... 'there were, unfortunately, five work related fatalities during 2013 across our Group'
Just what is the point of them continuing with a Zero Harm policy?
John
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JohnW wrote:I hope all the professionals posting here know the difference between goals and targets, but for some companies it really is silly, yes silly, to have a ZERO HARM goal.
I know a large construction company who have a ZERO HARM 'policy', this is what their safety policy said in 2008
'We..... are committed to achieving Zero Harm - zero fatalities and zero permanently disabling injuries - across our businesses by 2012.
But their problem is they are a huge company, doing hazardous construction/road/railways jobs every day and they will have accidents every week, including to members of the public, and their history lists fatalities every year.
Zero Harm .... they have said 'In 2014 and beyond, our Zero Harm goals of zero fatalities, zero disabling injuries, zero injuries to members of the public and zero new cases of long term harm to health, will remain.....
Yet the company report says 'In 2013, in response to an unacceptable level of fatalities, serious injuries and near misses, we initiated work on implementing our Global Safety Principles.
and... 'there were, unfortunately, five work related fatalities during 2013 across our Group'
Just what is the point of them continuing with a Zero Harm policy?
John
Because they believe that an aspiration of zero is morally the right thing to do?
Because they believe that an aspiration of anything other zero is accepting that serious accidents are OK and they don't think that is an acceptable stance?
Because they want to ensure that even if an excellent safety record is achieved, that they don't get complacent?
Because there are companies out there that are achieve zero serious incidents?
I don't see a problem with the aspiration personally, why would you aspire to anything other than zero? It doesn't mean you expect to hit zero this year, next etc. but it can still be an aspiration.
My rub is when zero serious incidents is mixed up with zero total incidents, the latter of which is pretty much impossible in most cases.
The issue the org you quote had, was they set it as a target for 2012, which clearly is nonsense, but as an aspiration, I support it.
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JJ Prendergast wrote:Rubbish.
I'm just realistic.
Corporately an organisation would struggle to justify an aspiration of anything other than zero, though.
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Yes they can have an 'aspiration' for zero harm, but publishing it and having it as a corporate slogan (they print it on ALL their on-site uniforms!) is pointless.
They should have a target and promote that, e.g. to reduce year on year figures by a certain amount, say 25%, having put into place some actions.
John
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JohnW wrote:Yes they can have an 'aspiration' for zero harm, but publishing it and having it as a corporate slogan (they print it on ALL their on-site uniforms!) is pointless.
So it's OK to have it as an aspiration, as long as they don't tell anyone? I don't see that working very well as a management technique, if I'm honest - set a goal but don't tell the workforce that's what you want to achieve.
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achrn wrote:JohnW wrote:Yes they can have an 'aspiration' for zero harm, but publishing it and having it as a corporate slogan (they print it on ALL their on-site uniforms!) is pointless.
So it's OK to have it as an aspiration, as long as they don't tell anyone? I don't see that working very well as a management technique, if I'm honest - set a goal but don't tell the workforce that's what you want to achieve.
As crazy as it sounds, Yes!
It is ok to have this aspiration, thats what we all do anyway when we develop our policies, management systems, behavioural strategies and leadership initiatives..........its all geared towards the philosophy of "Zero Harm"
If all the components of your business strategy are robustly implemented at all times, with all your people demonstrating exemplary bahviours and NOT stepping out the management controls,...then Zero Harm can be achieved.
However, if you state this is what you are going to achive by 20!! then everyone in the business will do everything in their power to achieve it (light duties for the walking wounded, lads sitting in vans in laybys on motorways with plaster casts etc.)
One thing I will say, as much as I hate the slogan, you have to doff your cap at how we all use this one company slogan as a utopian ideal.
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For those who believe in Zero Harm I have one word... insurance.
Pick up the phone and ask your insurer if you can get a reduction in your premium on the basis of having "Zero Harm" as a corporate policy...
Mick
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kevkel wrote:The problem with common sense is that its not all that common!
In addition - what is common to one is not common to all.
Has anybody ever seen common sense used as a defence in law?
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Ok, so what is a tolerable number of recordable accidents?
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