The Highway Safety Officers Group (HSOG) has commissioned a freely-downloadable film to promote greater awareness of health and safety issues when working on, or near the motorway.
‘Chance taker, accident maker!’ provides health and safety professionals with an interactive training tool to generate discussion around attitude, as well as behavioural and cultural aspects of safety, illustrating how these can affect day-to-day operations.
Real operatives volunteered to take part in the reconstructions with filming taking place at an operational highways depot. Workers were keen to portray “how it really is” in the workplace and were therefore given the freedom to improvise and influence how the reconstructions were shot.
According to HSOG, recognising why people behave in a certain way and understanding that their behaviour can influence their colleagues is key to improving safety on site, as is being brave enough to challenge negative behaviours.
Nick Philp, chair of HSOG, said: “Everyone should have the expectation of being able to go home at the end of the working day in much the same condition as when they arrived. People do not go to work to get injured. Often, owing to the changing nature of working on the highway, unnecessary risks are taken. That’s when an accident is most likely to happen and someone could be seriously injured.”
The film premiere of ‘Chance taker, accident maker!’ takes place at this year’s West Midlands HAUC/HSOG roadshow at Dunstall Park Racecourse, Wolverhampton on 10 and 11 September.
For further information, go to www.hsog.org.uk
