"No-one in their right mind would argue against them"


Here, hold my beer!!

As is usual in these conversations we end up conflating two issues .... H&S at work and personal risk acceptance.

The Health and Safety at Work Act is a fine thing and approproate when dealing with the welfare of 'captive' audiences like employees and customers .... it prevents businesses reverting to the 'Dark Satanic Mills' mindset in order to maximise profit to the detriment of their workforce's health and wellbeing (maybe not so much in Leicester or Bradford but that's another story )

It doesn't apply to individuals going about their leisure activities ...there are certain areas of life like driving etc where some infringement on personal choice is deemed acceptable ....usually when using machinery in a public setting.

This is quite limited .... and so it should be ...if H&S at W criteria were to be applied to private life then you can kiss goodbye to rock-climbing, mountain walking, horse-riding, motorcycling, surfing, skiing.... the list would be endless .... no more Morgans or vintage cars as their safety equipment is sub-optimal .... we'd all be in the same 2 ton SUVs from whichever manufacturer faked the crash-test most convincingly.

As it is, in our private lives we still very largely operate on the basis of adults making their own decisions ..... does this always end well? ... nope!. But the alternative is such a proscribed half life of reduced experience that we should run a mile (or maybe not run in case we trip ) from more and more safety legislation in areas where it affects no-one but ourselves.

K

Ps ... before someone brings up the 'burden to the NHS' argument .... the biggest burden on the NHS is from the couch and the kitchen .... not the horse-riders, surfers etc etc ..... 'safe' idleness and inaction rather than an active, if slightly more risky, life.

After all, you can always exercise your adult choice and don full body armour to open a can of soup if you wish .... just don't make me do it