"Nightjar .me.uk" "cpb"@ insert my surname here wrote in message
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On 02/04/2015 14:19, michael adams wrote:
"Nightjar .me.uk" "cpb"@ insert my surname here wrote in message
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On 02/04/2015 04:48, john james wrote:
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But he isn't lifting it, just carrying it...

The same guidelines apply to handling as well as to lifting. Once you start moving
weights like that around manually, there is a high risk of injury.

I'd imagine that would only apply to people with no actual experience of doing
such work. Or with no training, which in the past was simply being shown
how to do it, by an experienced person.

Otherwise in the past it would have been impossible to find anyone
to do such work, as they'd all be injuring themselves and unable to earn
a living.

As it's unlikely that random members of the public are going to want
to lift sacks of coal, all that applying Health and Safety regulations
does in such circumstances, is denigrate the experienced coalman
in assuming that he doesn't have the skill or experience to do the
job he's being doing for years, without injuring himself.

That does not mean he has not been at risk of injury all that time.

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And there will presumably be statistics to support that claim.

In terms of the injuries suffered by workers in the coal delivery
trade over any given period. As against the total number of
trained delivery workers.

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Patronising ? Moi ?

There is a hierarchy of ways to protect people from risk. At the top end is isolating
them from it entirely, although fully automated coal delivery is probably a long way in
the future. Training alone comes at the bottom, as an absolute last resort, when
nothing else is possible. Providing them with the proper equipment to do the job with a
minimum of risk comes somewhere around the middle.

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That would all depend on how much risk experienced coal delivery men were
actually subjected to. Either in the past and at present. Which could
best be assessed by the number of coalmen employed in any particular
period past or present, as against the number of coalmen reporting
themselves injured again during that same period.

Without any actual statistics any subjective assessment of risk
remains just that. Purely subjective. And might be open to all
kinds of bias, both from people trying to create careers for
themselves, or so as to sell various types of equipment.


michael adams

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--
Colin Bignell