A year or so ago a major waste company placed 12 street cleaners, wearing yellow hi viz coats in a busy out of town shopping complex and asked shoppers coming out how many they remembered seeing. The average the shoppers reported seeing was four. A month later they repeated the test with 12 workers in shocking pink hi viz coats. The average the shoppers reported seeing was nine.
A few weeks ago I happened to be home when an employee of my electricity supplier called to read the meter. I noticed that he was wearing full safety boots. After some questioning and examination I discovered that the boots he was wearing were a heavy 200j toecap, steel mid-sole boot with s3 oil and chemical resistance. According to the personal pedometer the man was carrying he reported walking 20+ miles per day.
In the first case over the passage of time we seem to have become ‘blind’ to both yellow and orange hi viz workware. Effectively it no longer actually works to draw our attention to the presence of an ‘at risk’ person.
In the second case the safety footwear was apparently “standard company issue”, effectively everybody gets “worst case scenario” PPE. Is this caused by fear of a claim if a lesser specification is issued, or a lack of basic understanding of when and how PPE needs to be prescribed and issued? Safety footwear has just become a given, whether it is actually needed or not.
Personally I would much rather endure the wolf whistles of wearing pink whilst working on the highway, knowing that my hi viz is fit-for-purpose and that I have been seen, compared to wearing a CE marked yellow hi viz and being killed by somebody who has become visually hi viz fatigued, failed to register that I’m there and at risk.
I’d also much rather take the risk (and potential injury) of stubbing my toe on the odd curb, but avoid the development of painful and debilitating tendinopathy and similar disorders in later life.
Is it time that we rethought our approach to PPE?
Chris Jones is director of risk management and compliance for Cory Environmental
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An interesting and succinct article by Chris.
Working in the word of events we have all recently been swept up into the realm of CDM2015 and of course PPE is seen as mandatory on many sites, not just the result of a risk assessment.
Hi-Viz jackets undoubtedly make staff easier to see when vehicles are manoeuvring or reversing, but surely its better to separate pedestrians and vehicles?
If you are working on a green field site with nothing around you, above you and nothing other than the sky likely to fall on your head, why would you wear a hard-hat?
The problem with having flexible rules regarding PPE is making sure that staff know when they need it and making sure they comply – so it becomes easier to make PPE mandatory, rather than ask staff to understand risk assessments and control measures.
Perhaps I’ll run my next site with little or no PPE – strictly by the risk assessment findings and see how long it is before a helpful enforcement person comes to speak to me!!
I agree – the belt and braces approach means that those who don’t need the higher standard of PPE are being made to wear it unnnecessarily and where gloves and glass approach there is the risk of incorrect standard of eyewear or gloves for the task being carried out. Reasonably practicable and user specific should be used, but it is ‘lazy’ organisations believing one solution fits all.
Chris
I agree entirely. Should this be an IOSH campaign????
Good idea Chris. My thoughts are that we are becoming peripheraly blinded not only by hi-viz but by all sorts of additional information – how many roadsigns do you pass on an average mile? How often do we need to discuss safety? how many helmets are required to meet all working scenarios? dont get me wrong there is a requirement but perhaps too much in certain areas.
Chris,
Totally agree, my company has to ensure all our engineers have PPE specified by our clients, but when you challenge them and ask for the risk that generates the PPE requirement, they are very reluctant to provide it, and usually hide under the ‘it’s easier to police’ banner if everyone is dressed the same regardless of risk.
Chris,
I couldn’t agree more, Blanket PPE policies with little thought to the wider impact such policies cause are a particular pet hate of mine.
Fear of litigation seems to be the common denominator.
Is it not just a case of someone not understanding the purpose of PPE? Unless there are some meters located in a high risk location where PPE is required, a meter reader is surely just generally a pedestrian. If some meters are in high risk areas, why? If someone is walking 20 miles, why are they not wearing suitable footwear? I know common sense doesn’t have a standing in the British legal system, but a valid risk assessment would have highlighted the foot ‘wear and tear’ as a risk, not exacerbated it with a pair of iron clads.I agree entirely that not only have we become hi-viz blind but there is a tendency to hide behind corporate safety policies. I had a good example of this many years ago when I was snagging a building prior to handover. As I walked down the corridor, I heard a bump and then an expletive, then another bump and another expletive, etc etc, until I reached the office where a carpet fitter was laying the carpet. In his hard hat! The bump was when he hit the wall with his hat as he pulled the carpet up tight to the perimeter gripper rod.I asked him why he was wearing his hard hat in an office decorated out and completely finished with the exception of a carpet. He said that it was the main contractors ‘hard hat’ site policy, and if he was caught by the site agent without wearing his hard hat, he would be removed from site as they had a zero tolerance policy. I advised the site agent that this was ridiculous. He repeated that it was company policy. What was of greater concern to me was that he genuinely thought it necessary. I did say that there were some ‘snags’ in the offices that I had just inspected and that they would all need redecorating after they had been put right. He thought I was being unreasonable as he thought the offices were complete and snag free apart from the carpets. I advised him that that may have been the case earlier that morning but now there were quite a number of dents in the wall about 500mm up from the carpet that would need repairing, after which, to avoid any colour variation, the affected walls would need fully repainting. Delay to the job, about 3 days. More annoying to me was that I had to hand a building over that was not now new, it had been damaged and repaired. All because of a corporate safety policy. Job specific please.
In my experience, most high visibility clothing is now used as free advertising space detracting from the real purpose which is to raise visibility in areas where vehicles and pedestrians are in close proximity. Not many kitchen fitters are going to be knocked over by a fork lift truck in a domestic kitchen. My thoughts are that PPE is required to be in place at all times to cover the likelihood of a person failing to don when it is required. Workers including safety professionals in all sectors need to be better educated in the hierarchy of control measures rather than just using the cover all PPE route.
In my view this is about proportionate responses. In my experience PPE is often specified as a first response. Rather than controlling the risk as source, they try to mitigate the effects by providing PPE, unfortunately this seems to lead to an over provision, the case of the safety shoes is a case in point. Perhaps they need comfortable stout shoes for normal use and safety boots for the abnormal use where perhaps they have to go on to a building site to read meters.
Don’t get me wrong I can see why it happens, e.g from the moment that a location becomes a building site they often have blanket rules about the wearing of full PPE, hard hats, safety boots, eye protection etc. but at the setting out stage, what’s going to fall on their heads so why wear hard hats??? the side effect of this blanket approach is that it can lead to the accusation that H & S is going over the top and in some respects I agree, but in some cases its easier to enforce a blanket ban than a proportionate response.
In some ways the argument about the Hi-vi clothing is the same as the one about signs, if they don’t say something relevant, people after a while stop taking notice of them, if people can’t perceive a valid reason for wearing Hi-Vi clothing people stop seeing it. Quite what could be done about this is difficult to work out, human nature being human nature, if we see a good thing, we use where ever a need is perceived, which invariably lead to it being used in situation where it’s not needed which bring the argument back to proportionate responses again. The only solution I can think of is a better informed workforce, (so that they can resist the imposition of inappropriate risk control measures) and better informed managers so that they don’t try impose inappropriate risk control measures.
Reminds me of an issue we had whilst working on a large research centre a few years ago.
The site was the usual mix of offices and labs with wide open grassy spaces and roads with pavements.
A blanket Hi Vis rule was introduced for anybody outside their building. Thus workers walking to the canteen at lunchtime and staff getting in an out of cars had to have Hi Vis. Even though they were traversing separate footpaths.
Pretty soon we all started not to see the Hi Vis.
This was Ok apart from nobody saw the litter picker or the guy checking drains or the banksman.
Using Hi Vis like all PPE should be targeted and specific to the task.
Where possible we should always look for other options rather than PPE.
Good article.
Footwear aspect is sheer laziness – come across it all the time.
‘Safety footwear’ means toetectors to most. ‘Appropriate PPE to suit the risk’ – too hard.
Often paired up with (scuse pun) the ‘spend limit’ approach too – if you need footwear outside our standard ‘one-suits-all’, you have to pay the extra yourself above a certain level.
Still to find that in the PPE regs . . .
Hi viz blindness.
I don’t think it was a very good test. Of course people would recall Workmen poncing about in shocking pink jackets whereas Sat yellow or Hi viz Orange are required by law for people working on the Highway so are very commonplace. These colours are much more visible especially in poor light conditions or car headlights.
Whilst Steel clad Safety boots may be issued unnecessarily the Modern trend is for Composite Safety boots that are 35% lighter and in fact safer than the old fashioned traditional steel ones. As more manufacturers produce them so the prices are coming down.
If these items are required to enable a worker to do his job safely they should be provided free of charge so price does come into it.
If a vehicle runs over your foot that’s when you will notice the difference.
Chris is right about hi-viz blindness, with every-man, and his dog, wearing it it has lost it’s effect. As a motorcyclist I wear hi-viz, not because it’s helps so much as without it in the event of a claim against another blind or distracted road user their insurers and in court legal team would claim I was negligent by not wearing it and seek to reduce the value of the claim. A fellow motorcyclist whom I speak to at work rides in and out on a bicycle, wears hi-viz and at night an dazzling array (number not brightness dazzle) of flashing lights on her arms and legs, helmet etc, and still she gets knocked off, to a degree still not seen, though ‘target fixation’ may also be a factor.
Pink is loosing it’s effect now as well, as it’s becoming more common, will it ever be possible to avoid the hi-viz blindness effect? Probably not, humans become habituated and learn to ignore non-threating things, the latest POLITE vests, with blue/white checker strips, worn by horse riders, cyclists and motorcyclists seem to have stopped working quickly too, no I don’t wear one.
The advice my Police instructors gave me years ago, look like a threat to their licence and people will pay attention, no longer applies. Though you may note the Police now wear pink, electric blue and good old saturn yellow depending on their role they know most people just don’t see them.
As for meter readers wearing steel toe caps and insulated steel midsoles, have you seen just how dangerous people garages, where a lot of meters are located, can be with sharp and heavy objects littering the place, I refuse to let them in mine, it’s that bad!
Hi Chris
I totally agree with you regarding Hi -Vis. I have enquired about pink vests and the difference is €3.00
I can purchase yellow / orange for € 2.95 and pink quote was €5.95 per vest.
I would also like to see farmers children wear Hi – vis vests when playing on farms as there is far to many casualties on farms
involving children and it may encourage farmers to wear vests, it would make them more visible when working in the fields on their own,
if anything should happen to them while working in the field etc. In the majority of cases the farm is not only the work place,
but also the family home. You never see a Black JCB, digger or other plant at road works etc
first thing you see at road works are yellow plant.
Christy Higgins
A very true and to the point article.
What he says is part pf the problem that was highlight on my HS supervisors course a couple of years ago, and is why HS has become a bit of a dirty word, due to people using HS as an excuse to impose all sorts of silly rules. You only have to look at the notes put out by HSE, highlighting some of the stupid excuses people have come out with.
Some people would rather blame HS for rules rather than be honest, and say some are just site rules. If you work on something like the Severn River Bridge you can understand why ladders are not permitted at any time due it being gusty most of the time.
I noted somebody mentioned in the comments, sites refusing to provide a copy of the risk assessment, sound like a classic example not actually having a risk assessment, because if risks on a site exist, a duty of care exists, to actually detail each and every identified risk and tell you about it. So by implication you have a Legal Right to this information.
So company doing it properly should have documented proof that you have briefed on this. Sites where I have been you have to sign a register to confirm that you have read and understood, site risk assessment as well as those associated with your job and if applicable also your job specific method statement.
It ain’t rocket science.
This reduction in remembering (It isn’t actually seeing them, just recalling they were present) a number of people wearing hi visibility clothing is probably less due to the colour and more to do with the fact that there are so many people wearing hi viz clothing these days, and the clothing is predominantly yellow or orange – and fit for purpose.
The difference with pink is that it’s unusual, not because it has a different response due to anything else.
It is lazy H&S management which is leading to the overuse of PPE – the footwear example supports this; by the employer just going for worst case instead of doing a proper, sensible, risk-based risk assessment.
In the end we will have a workforce of automatons wearing hi viz, helmets, boots etc who behave how they please purely because they are ‘fully protected’.
A worker who quickly steps out from behind a stationary vehicle on a busy road, into the traffic, without allowing time and space for drivers to see them, will still get run down whether they are wearing hi viz or not, no matter what colour it is.
It is very similar to the overuse of antibiotics – many of us will become immune to the effects of the controls we ourselves have created, rendering the controls less effective.
Another good thought provoking article and some of the issues raised I have also raised…usually on deaf ears. The principle of PPE is that it should be identified via a risk assessment and the controls to mitigate against the risks. However most PPE does not and is really not much more than uniform, or wallpaper. The real danger highlighted in the article is the wallpaper scenario, where hi-vis apparel has become ubiquitos where few people even take notice now. Even wearing pink hi-vis could result in the same myopia given time. What is needed is a robust policy, indeed philosophy for PPE instead of handing out often uneeded PPE – it’s lazy and cheap h&s management without any thought process, which is becoming all the more frequent in many areas of risk management.
hmmm…interesting one. i fully agree that yellow blobs are not the way forward (blob being a civilized human being wearing all yellow clothing, HOWEVER:
– work starts on site at 07.00/07.30 and it’s November – Hi-viz or no Hi-Viz?
the future is two tone clothing. this is darker more civilised clothing with just enough hi-viz on to pass legal EN20471 hi-viz requirements – either class 1 or class 2. the two tone effect also acts as a visual disrupter to get your attention. i.e. if an all yellow car drives past you barely notice. if an all yellow car drives past and half of it is in a darker colour – you remember it – correct?
your comments are food for thought Chris, and will germinate change which is what we need.