Stormin Mormon wrote:

On 3/3/2014 6:45 AM, philo wrote:
On 03/02/2014 10:03 PM, Robert Green wrote:
My wife asks: "Is there any protection to be gained by placing a thick
rubber mat in front of the circuit panel where someone working on the
panel
would normally stand?" It would seem it would have to help a little.

It certainly would not hurt anything to place a rubber mat there but
it's not likely to make anything safer.

Less likely to have a current path to
ground through your legs and feetsies.

Most shoes are pretty good insulators at 120V which is the most you
would get to ground (in the US) anyway. Since the panel enclosure is
grounded and there are terminals of both phases (polarity technically)
in the panel, you have a much better chance of getting across 120V or
even 240V in the panel itself. This is of course where the old "one
hand" idea came from, but as we all know in today's overstuffed panels
that's simply not viable.

The two most important safety things you can do are to make sure you
have good footing i.e. you aren't climbing on junk to get to the panel,
and that you have good lighting so you can clearly see inside the panel
to avoid contact with exposed terminals and bus bars.