Has anyone come across a situation whereby on a safety tour, they have seen an employee wearing an I-pod underneath the hearing protection?
I immediately asked the guy in question why he was wearin it, the obvious reply was because I like listening to music. A noise survey has been carried out and identified the levels that need protection, and the type of protection required i.e hearing plugs as aposed to hearing muffs, giving a choice but also protecting the employee(s).

I explained that although he may think it is helping to block out the noise from any process altogether. it also is a distraction because the hearing protection allows certain noise frequencies through which will enable him to be aware of his surrroundings. for example when two people are communication with a good hearing protector, the voice can usually be heard pretty clearly against any background noise.

He was a young lad who 'sneaked' in his i-pod and drowned himself in another world. I immediately banned this and issued a warning instruction for this not to happen.

Your thoughts.

I'll play devil's advocate for the moment (apparently I'm good at it)

noise aside, what other hazards were there present that would require someone to bring to his notice verbally?

A Kurdziel

I don't like I-pods anywhere (but that's a brand choice). I also don't like unjustified blanket bans, controls or requirements. I'm sat at my desk with my headphones listening to Bowie. If I wasn't, i wouldn't be able to get anything done be cause of the background chatter. It's not that it's particularly loud, it's just that I can't concentrate through it.

Am I in any great danger? (yes I can hear the fire alarm, I heard it being tested ten minutes ago)

Going in the same direction of "Safety Smurf", is the MP3 music player introducing another level of risk to the individual with regards to the workplace? If the individual is in a noisy environment, and he has ear protection on, would he hear an alarm anyway, one would assume that a visible alarm would be made available.
Blanket bans are the scourge of the HSE professional, and it is where we inherit the bad name. If a risk assessment is done accurately and the risk is tolerable, where is the harm?

Safety Smurf, congratulations on your choice of music.

I have to say that in some areas of work and in my opinion it is OK to listen to music and some people need to be distracted from hum drum occupations and they need a distraction that they like.

In other areas it would not be acceptable.

Why not try risk assessing?

What about hearing and reacting to audible alarms?

Of course I don’t have positive evidence that MP3 etc players might compromise hearing protection but equally I don’t have any that they don’t. I do not believe that any manufacturer of this kit produces hearing protection designed to be used with these players. It is not included in any of the tests under the appropriate standard.

My son is on a work experience scheme and was told off by the lady in charge of him for using iPhone with ear buds. She was annoyed because she had to attract his attention before talking to him, he was bored because the work he was doing was tedious, lots of filing.

One of his duties was to push the button that remotely opens the from door, he could hear the buzzer all right for that.

Look at the definition of noise and you will see it is "unwanted sound".

People who use earbuds to listen to music are not listening to "noise" so can it be included in a noise assessment?

I wonder if this would stand up in court?

We don't allow ipod headphones with ear defenders. Obviously if they are designed to keep noise out, they will also keep noise it which may in itself be damaging. However we did not ban ipods completely, our staff are allowed to use one earphone, but the other ear must be unobstructed. Most people understand the reasons for awareness and work within these guidelines. Simples and it seems to be generally accepted.

Arghhhh where is the edit button……… Ignore the above

Interesting thread.

The ear protection type will be specifically calculated with the Single Number Rating (SNR) value determined by the noise assessment, for one reason you wouldn't want to over protect where speech is required or under protect in very noisy environments. So I guess listening to music has just screwed up you assessment, because we cannot take this into consideration during the noise assessment.

If staff have to wear ear protection I assume the workplace is noisy, lets say you employee gets a hearing problem (i.e. because of listening to continuous loud music) and wanted to sue, it may be difficult to defend if you allow it to happen in the workplace, for example they are still being exposed to noise.

Fire Safety - I am the manager and the 'sound from the iPod is unwanted' lol

Anyway 'noise' is any audible sound.

On this topic, we recently ran an evacuation exercise in an office block. All went well but someone was missing. As it was an exercise I decided to make the fire warden decide what to do. After a few minutes he decided to re-enter the building, just in time to bump into the young lad coming out. When quizzed about his whereabouts it seems he had his earphones in listening to music and hadn't heard the alarm until the music track finished. Now the alarms can be heard half way across the factory so goodness knows how loud his music was.
I politely suggested he didn't wear earphones again!!

Interesting thread, albeit not an original topic. I recall an individual who would not allow woolly hats to be worn on their infrastructure. I asked why? I was advised that they would impair people's hearing - you can't be serious was my reply. Given that when working with plant and machinery you may have to wear ear defenders. Anyway, then I was told that hard hats sometimes don't fit properly...blah, blah. My point, it's often easy to say no - sometimes it's a perception thing rather than any real problem that cannot be managed.