BS: Health and safety gone mad

Subject: BS: Health and safety gone mad
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 16 Jul 11 - 04:49 PM

I drove past a line of no more than 15-20 children aged perhaps 7-8, all wearing pretty little high visibility jackets, and were accompanied by 10 adults.

Can someone tell me why?

The 30 or so in my class at junior school were never accompanied by more than one adult who would usually be our teacher. And as for the silly yellow jackets...............I despair!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Health and safety gone mad
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 16 Jul 11 - 04:54 PM

It could be worse. They could have sirens and flashing lights.

Subject: RE: BS: Health and safety gone mad
From: gnu
Date: 16 Jul 11 - 05:10 PM

7-8? Isn't that about the age at which to let the stupid ones venture into traffic to cull the herd?

Subject: RE: BS: Health and safety gone mad
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 16 Jul 11 - 05:48 PM

The high-viz jackets are meant to give the kids a fighting chance against the texting drivers.

Subject: RE: BS: Health and safety gone mad
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 16 Jul 11 - 05:53 PM

MAC-10s might be more effective BWL!!

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Health and safety gone mad
From: Ebbie
Date: 16 Jul 11 - 07:46 PM

Age 7-8 are in 'junior' school? In America what grade does that translate to? In the US, kids 7 or 8 years old would probably be in the third year of school.

In Alaska, and for that matter, west coast schools, group outings for 15-20 youngsters might entail perhaps four adults. BUT, that might be totally dependent on the activity when they arrive at their destination.

Besides which - in a group of 15-20 kids- was there any way to tell if the children were troubled or delinquent in some manner? Some situations demand almost one to one supervision.

Subject: RE: BS: Health and safety gone mad
From: Donuel
Date: 16 Jul 11 - 10:31 PM

What you saw was a jeuvy prison gang.
Were the chains made of plastic?

Subject: RE: BS: Health and safety gone mad
From: Rapparee
Date: 16 Jul 11 - 10:43 PM

The jackets are so that the guards can spot them more easily when the kids escape to do something that's really fun, like run around and play.

Subject: RE: BS: Health and safety gone mad
From: gnu
Date: 16 Jul 11 - 11:03 PM

"run around and play."

Good lord! They might have fun!

Subject: RE: BS: Health and safety gone mad
From: GUEST,999
Date: 16 Jul 11 - 11:09 PM

On occasion, kids are taken out to

1) learn to use the public transportation system in their town or city

2) and if your child was in the group, I doubt you'd complain about the extra people acting as chaperons

Subject: RE: BS: Health and safety gone mad
From: GUEST,PeterC
Date: 17 Jul 11 - 05:50 AM

You don't say at what time of day this was. Where parking is difficult in the immediate vicinity of the school "walking busses" are sometimes organised from suitable gathering points. Parents might accompany the children to the school hence the high adult / child ratio.

Subject: RE: BS: Health and safety gone mad
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 17 Jul 11 - 05:50 AM

Hands up all those people who will volunteer their own children to go around the busy roads of anywhere with Bonzo3legs?

L in C#

Subject: RE: BS: Health and safety gone mad
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 17 Jul 11 - 05:58 AM

I totally agree, Bonzo3legs. My neighbour faithfully accompanies her NINE year-old daughter to school, just around the corner (3 mins walk) every day and meets her to bring her home. This in a quiet village, nowhere near a main road. At nine, the child should be more than capable of getting herself to school, it's ridiculous. And even stranger, I saw the nursery department out for a walk to the park (about 5 mins along a pavement) with innumerable adults in tow, and each child TIED to a long thick rope!!! These children will never learn to be independent, they are babied and spoilt at every turn.

Subject: RE: BS: Health and safety gone mad
From: Musket
Date: 17 Jul 11 - 12:26 PM

I feel sorry for The Health and Safety Executive. There is so much overkill that goes on with them being used as the excuse, rather than risk averse staff in general or (as in many H&S in the private sector) insurance requirements.

I am part of a government regulatory body and meet with HSE people. As such, I have two of their overall messages to the good people that I am sure they would want relaying;

1. Health and safety idiocies are not always to keep HSE happy, they are often showing a lack of understanding of health and safety.

2. Some things have altered over the years, and many people are alive today who wouldn't be if it wasn't for enhanced understanding of risk.

I agree with Eliza that parents are wrapping kids in cotton wool, and mine walked to school from an early age. On their own once they were old enough. Although if I were a teacher with lots of the little darlings, I suppose I would feel nervous considering the appalling driving skills of many people. Road fatalities have gone down and accidents in general have gone down, but before drivers get all smug, it is far more to do with modern engineering, anti lock brakes, etc than us evolving into better drivers.

Sorry Bozo3legs, when I see a thread with this title, I see a lack of understanding of health and safety, even when I may agree with the example you give. Tabloid newspapers run with this thread title in order to sell newspapers, not because of reality?

Subject: RE: BS: Health and safety gone mad
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 17 Jul 11 - 12:37 PM

Yay, Ian, mebbe: but beware of branding the Press (even the tabloids) as the kind of bogeyman & whipping-boy & overall GeneralPurpose villain that you accuse them of denouncing H&S as!

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Health and safety gone mad
From: GUEST,999
Date: 17 Jul 11 - 12:39 PM

There is a point being missed that should be considered. Many people in many places have become sue crazy. And the courts allow the cases to eat up court time. Subsequently, folks do what they can to provide 'due diligence'.

As a kid I walked to school for five blocks. That was then. This is now. Times have changed.

Subject: RE: BS: Health and safety gone mad
From: LilyFestre
Date: 17 Jul 11 - 01:51 PM

As a mommy of a small child, I don't see what the problem is with wearing a reflective jacket. I'd far rather have my child wearing that hideous color than be hit by a car.

As someone who has been a teacher, I can tell you that yes there are always chaperons on school trips but also there are several parents who just want to tag along and enjoy the fun or take photos of their child on the field trip.

If it means keeping my child safe, I'm all for it.

Michelle

Subject: RE: BS: Health and safety gone mad
From: jacqui.c
Date: 17 Jul 11 - 02:15 PM

I agree Michelle. There are a lot more cars on the road these days and not all drivers are as careful as they should be.

I would also point out that kids do go missing occasionally. Nowadays this means a lot of publicity and I think that is one of the reasons that parents tend not to let kids out alone, even at nine. One might say that this is a rare occurrence but, if it is your beloved chick, how much of a risk would you take?

Little ones can wander off - they have no real sense of the danger that might be around. I'm sure that the parents of these children feel happier that their kids are being protected. Can you imagine being the teacher responsible for a kiddie who disappears from a group because there are insufficient safeguards and not enough adults to control them?

When my children were quite young we did not have a garden - they played on the open greens around the flats we lived in. Besides trying to teach them road safety I also explained the 'stranger danger' to them. I am glad that I did when my beautiful blonde haired blue eyed nine year old daughter was beckoned to by a man in a car. My clever little kid took off in the other direction!

Better to wrap the kids in cotton wool a bit longer than lose them forever.

Subject: RE: BS: Health and safety gone mad
From: Monique
Date: 17 Jul 11 - 02:28 PM

Michelle, what you describe, i.e. "several parents who just want to tag along and enjoy the fun or take photos of their child on the field trip" is a real nuisance when you go on a trip with your class. Not only they're not efficient to watch the kids because they've only come for theirs (= you can't rely on them) but their children often take advantage of their moms being there to behave like spoilt brats.

Subject: RE: BS: Health and safety gone mad
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 17 Jul 11 - 02:52 PM

What Bonzo complains about sounds a perfectly sensible arrangement, so far as the reflective jackets is concerned. Cuts down the possibility of stray kids tagging along along the way, for one thing.

I suppose it would be possible to arrange a separate crocodile for surplus adults who were sharing the walk, but I can imagine logistical problems in enforcing that. And I can envisage Bonzo on a different day objecting to that too...

Subject: RE: BS: Health and safety gone mad
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 17 Jul 11 - 04:57 PM

I was a teacher for nearly thirty years. I can't count the numbers of school trips I've supervised, including several over to France on the ferry. I've been in charge of schoolchildren from six to twelve, also Brownies and Youth Club members. And, if correctly briefed beforehand, the children are perfectly capable of getting themselves along a pavement, down a street in Paris, onto a coach or a ferry etc etc without being run over, abducted, squashed flat or otherwise maimed, with just the teacher (me) and two other adults supervising their progress. But if they are led by the hand at every step, escorted every time they walk a few yards, not expected to be responsible or well-behaved, then they will be unable to travel anywhere independently and will be wimps forever. We are creating fearful and un-streetwise chidren.

Subject: RE: BS: Health and safety gone mad
From: Little Hawk
Date: 17 Jul 11 - 09:42 PM

Well said, Eliza!

Subject: RE: BS: Health and safety gone mad
From: Ebbie
Date: 17 Jul 11 - 11:09 PM

Eliza, I agree with your premise -but only as far as it goes.

Protecting, even coddling, young children and progressively loosening controls over them is the normal thing to do.

A kid of three or four years old may appropriately be led around city streets with each child holding a rope or the hand of another child. It is kind of like teaching a dog: In order to forestall an action that you don't want, you give the dog something different to do. If a child knows he or she is to hold onto a rope, letting go - in order to run across a street or to take a punch at another kid - is two different actions- he or she has to decide to disobey the first act, e.g. letting go of the rope before he can do the other. Your chances of maintaining order are much greater.

I would imagine that in your long history of taking children on field trips, a great many years consisted of taking the

Interruption. I'll be back.

Subject: RE: BS: Health and safety gone mad
From: catspaw49
Date: 17 Jul 11 - 11:35 PM

So the next time we run one of those "kid stolen/killed/raped/etc." threads I will remember to watch for those who posted here..........geeziz.............


Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Health and safety gone mad
From: Little Hawk
Date: 18 Jul 11 - 12:27 AM

Hey, Pat?

There's nothing on Earth anyone can do that'll make everything perfect or every child safe. Some bad things will happen regardless. Children can be overprotected too, and that can be harmful to their development. Everything anyone has said here on this thread is definitely true on some occasion from the particular angle they're looking at it from, and it will work fine sometimes...but won't another time. We're all right! ;-) No one here is wrong. No one here deserves someone else's impatient contempt because they said something different about it. So how about just taking a deep breath and finding something else to express your general level of frustration over?

Or you could kick the dog instead...

Subject: RE: BS: Health and safety gone mad
From: Rapparee
Date: 18 Jul 11 - 12:46 AM

High visibility jackets makes sense on a field trip, for example. A piece of distinctive clothing can make the kid act better and help find them if they get lost.

I've actually in favor of it, but I don't want kids to become so regimented that they can't run around and play. They can be educated about "bad people" and should be. But I've also seen groups of kids in the library, and many times you don't know if they are part of a class visit or have wandered away from their parents.

Subject: RE: BS: Health and safety gone mad
From: Gurney
Date: 18 Jul 11 - 03:17 AM

Not really health and safety, but... I picked a boy of about 8 up from his home, meeting his parents for the first time, and took him in my van to take samples from streams in the area. Then I took him to school, -it was a school project, -but we had missed out a particular stream. I was not allowed to take him out again, as once he was on school property, he could only be taken off it with the express written permission of his parents.

The teacher who wouldn't let him go out with me again was the one who had organised me to take him in the first place. The teacher and I are both members of a stream protection group.

Subject: RE: BS: Health and safety gone mad
From: Arnie
Date: 18 Jul 11 - 07:08 AM

I've just read that a young mum was struggling up a London town call steps with a pram. She asked an official at the top of the steps if she could help. The official called security and two large men in hi-viz vests duly appeared. They looked down the steps at the mum and pram and then announced that they couldn't help as they had not received the appropriate training and so could injure themselves! Think I'll invest in a hi-viz clothing company - must be as profitable as the road cone manufacturers.

Subject: RE: BS: Health and safety gone mad
From: GUEST,Patsy
Date: 18 Jul 11 - 10:34 AM

Tagging along by a rope sounds suspiciously to me that schools today lack the discipline and control as they once did.

Subject: RE: BS: Health and safety gone mad
From: catspaw49
Date: 18 Jul 11 - 11:31 AM

Rap has it best. Some of these things y'all are bitchin' about are simply a bit of caution in an increasingly dangerous and litigious world. But my actual point goes more to this. Let's assume one of the 7 year olds on the field trip is killed or injured. If I'm the teacher I feel bad but I also question myself as to what might have prevented that from happening. If I'm the parent and find the teacher or school has not taken proper precautions, I'm fuckin' pissed.......and I want a large piece of someone's ass!

I just sent two sons out into the world and watched them as they went through school go on many field trips. They were never overprotected but the schools took reasonable precautions. The boys are of very divergent intelligence and emotional levels but neither is a shrinking violet.

Now if those "silly" yellow/green jackets are so silly, why are they worn by everything from highway crews to bikers anymore? I despair that your head is stuck deep in your ass! On the other hand, even from that location you were able to see those silly jackets.


Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Health and safety gone mad
From: Monique
Date: 18 Jul 11 - 12:00 PM

According to my experience, if you're the parent you'll always find the teacher and school have not taken proper precautions because you'll always feel that your child would have been safer if you'd been there. I've always taught my first graders that no adult in the world can protect them if they don't behave. Dashing across a street/road isn't safe because your mom or dad or any adult is here.

Subject: RE: BS: Health and safety gone mad
From: LilyFestre
Date: 18 Jul 11 - 12:07 PM

That's a good point.

And yes, when parents come along, the kids behave differently and sometimes not for the best. However, as a teacher, I would not be permitted to tell a parent they cannot come on a field to trip to be with their child if that is what they wanted. They are the parents after all.?

I think age has a lot to do with it and where the field trip is. A trip out in the city with a group of 8 year olds is far different than a trip with 14 year olds or a less busy location.

I stand my ground. I'd rather have my child safe than wonder, WHAT IF?

I do agree that there are extremes and that isn't what I'm talking about. I guess in the end it all comes down to what you as a parent feel is best for YOUR child. It doesn't matter what neighbors or people on the internet think as parents know their children best.

Michelle

PS. Jacqui....so glad to hear that your child ran off!!! SMart!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Health and safety gone mad
From: Ed T
Date: 18 Jul 11 - 12:14 PM

""Tagging along by a rope""

Sounds more like a grup of government workers being let outside for a work break. :)

Subject: RE: BS: Health and safety gone mad
From: LilyFestre
Date: 18 Jul 11 - 12:18 PM

The idea of the rope is that when small children go out in large groups, it helps them stay together instead of wandering off. It simple is a large rope with handles and the kids must keep one hand on the rope at all times. An adult walks at the head of the group and another at the rear. This is frequently used when walking preschool children to the park or the pool in this area. The rope is not tied to the child in any manner at all.

Michelle

Subject: RE: BS: Health and safety gone mad
From: Little Hawk
Date: 18 Jul 11 - 12:35 PM

This thread got started mainly because Bonzo3legs got pissed off about something he saw. As such, it has generated a truly satisfying amount of comment and argument, along with a few insults cast and expressions of pitying amazement made over other posters' stupidity, "heads up their ass", etc., but I fear that it may presently run out of steam as the dead horse we see before us is finally beaten into complete non-existence, and then whatever shall we do????

So, what else can we fight about today? ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Health and safety gone mad
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 18 Jul 11 - 12:57 PM

Are you really calling out Catspaw for that??? "other posters' stupidity, "heads up their ass", etc" You MUST be running out of things to fight about.

Subject: RE: BS: Health and safety gone mad
From: catspaw49
Date: 18 Jul 11 - 02:33 PM

I'd be happy fight but since Hawk cannot see the wisdom and magic of The Great Hat and instead lives for broke-dick fuckwits like Major Tom and the scrawny Winona, there is no challenge in it.


Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Health and safety gone mad
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 18 Jul 11 - 03:45 PM

I note that Bonzo didn't even mention any rope.

Walking kids in a crocodile is hardly a new way of shepherding them along. I imagine people have been doing it for centuries. The Romans probably borrowed the idea from the Greeks...

Sometimes the careful thing is the sensible thing. Sometimes it isn't. Use your imagination and use your head is the right way to go. Unfortunately some people don't, and that results in rules and regulations which can go too far the other way - normally because they are misinterpreted by people who still can't use their imaginations and their heads when it comes to applying them.

Subject: RE: BS: Health and safety gone mad
From: LilyFestre
Date: 18 Jul 11 - 03:48 PM

Spaw,

I've missed you!!!! *G*

Michelle

Subject: RE: BS: Health and safety gone mad
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 18 Jul 11 - 03:57 PM

Certainly no rope - what ever next?? I think that they were walking to a swimming pool situated in the grounds of a nearby private school.

Subject: RE: BS: Health and safety gone mad
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 18 Jul 11 - 03:58 PM

but beware of branding the Press (even the tabloids) as the kind of bogeyman...

Errrr, News International, Phone Hacking, Rupert Murdoch. Need I go on about bogeymen? I don't think anyone can brand them further than they have themselves!

:D tG

Subject: RE: BS: Health and safety gone mad
From: Little Hawk
Date: 18 Jul 11 - 04:21 PM

I think we all ran out of things to fight about long ago, Jack. That's my point.

Subject: RE: BS: Health and safety gone mad
From: gnu
Date: 18 Jul 11 - 05:52 PM

"I think we all ran out of things to fight about long ago,..."

We shall NEVER, as long as the Mudcat Café survives and exists, give up the fights. This island of surfdom, safe and secure for many, harbouring those who shall NEVER surrender, shall not perish, no matter how difficult the days ahead! Fight on I say! Fight on! For freedom!

William Wallace ate oatmeal regulary and was regular. Ya gotta be healthy if yer gonna be safe eh? Safety first I always say. And a good shit is is a safe bet. An apple a day eh?

Subject: RE: BS: Health and safety gone mad
From: GUEST,999
Date: 18 Jul 11 - 09:53 PM

Jaysus, me son. Where were you when Churchill needed help with his speeches?

Subject: RE: BS: Health and safety gone mad
From: Donuel
Date: 18 Jul 11 - 10:03 PM

Where will the children plaaaay aayy aay aay aaay aaay aay?

Put up a parking lot.

Subject: RE: BS: Health and safety gone mad
From: Gurney
Date: 19 Jul 11 - 02:17 AM

Surfdom, Gnu? Are you saying Mudcat is a beach?

Subject: RE: BS: Health and safety gone mad
From: Greg F.
Date: 19 Jul 11 - 09:15 AM

Surf's Up!