On Sat, 11 Oct 2003 08:12:17 +0100, Wanderer
wrote:

On Fri, 10 Oct 2003 23:41:15 +0100, Dave Plowman wrote:

In article ,
Wanderer wrote:
But the danger of following an idiot's guide is that they may not
realise that regardless of said idiot's guide if they actually get the
cables in the wrong terminals it could have lethal consequences.

Are you really sure there are many who don't realise that some wires are
live while others aren't? Most people with no technical knowledge know
what an earth is.

I've had to attend a couple of inquests as expert witness, so yes, and
judging on some of the questions I've seen asked in this NG over the
three or four years I've been following it, again, yes! There may not be
many, but just one accident because someone doesn't understand what
they're doing is too many.

This is all very well but there are several points....

- The vast majority of electrically related accidents relate to
portable appliances and not fixed wiring.

- The new legislation permits so called minor works which anybody is
supposed to be allowed to do. If they get it wrong the effect is
going to be just as lethal as if they had attempted a more major
project and got that wrong. So why was the legislation drafted in
this way? Simple. This fudges the issue because the only way would
have been to organise the legislation along the same lines as that for
gas and introduce criminal penalties and a watchdog. This would have
gained a much higher visibility and accusations of draconian
government interference. It is anyway of course, but this has been
lubricated and spun using information from the IEE, RoSPA and others
selectively - i.e. select the evidence to support the foregone
conclusion.

- Somebody doing electrical work as DIY who does not know what they
are doing to the point of creating danger is probably not very likely
either to take any notice of or even know about the new legislation.
Likewise for cowboy professionals.

Saying that one accident is one too many is bogus in the real world.
People have to take responsibility for themselves. It's reasonable
to do things and have legislation which is going to make a
statistically significant difference, but this is not and the case is
far from proven. It is not justifiable to introduce legislation
affecting everybody in an attempt to prevent the demise of one or
individuals who would probably have ignored it anyway.
This demonstrates that the real reasons are not as presented at all.
But then we knew that.




..andy

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