http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1231962/Elf--safety-strikes-bowling-alley--250-000-study-tell-tenpin-bowls-dangerous.htmlElf & safety strikes again: £250,000 study to tell us ten-pin bowling is dangerous
By Steve Doughty
Last updated at 11:37 AM on 30th November 2009
It's a peril that only a crack team of health and safety experts could have uncovered.
After two years and £250,000, they found that ten-pin bowling alleys up and down the country could be a 'very dangerous' environment for families.
They concluded that it was too easy for children or teenagers to run down lanes and get trapped in machinery that sets up the pins - even though there was no record of any such accident having happened.
The bizarre Health and Safety Executive report found that members of the public would be at risk if they walked along the 60-foot lanes to knock over pins by hand.
Its authors even considered ordering every bowling alley to put barriers across lanes. But they were forced to admit defeat - after realising that bowlers must be able to see what they are aiming at.
Their report said: ' Because customers need to see the pins and bowling balls entering the machine, managing the risk of access into the machine from the lanes is more difficult.'
Instead they have told operators to fit photoelectric beams to lanes so that pin-setting machines will cut off automatically if anyone trespasses.
John Ashbridge, of The Ten-Pin Bowling Proprietors Association, said:
'I have been in this industry for 40 years and I have never known any member of the public injured by a bowling pinsetter. I have never heard of anybody going near the pins.' [emphasis added]
Mr Ashbridge said he had watched HSE inspectors examining a bowling centre and he found their attempts to detect possible dangers 'hilarious'.
He added: 'Some operators have now fitted photoelectric beams. They don't cause any problems - they don't stop the machines because nobody ever goes near the pins.'
The HSE inquiry was begun after a technician was crushed to death in 2006 in Barking, East London, when a pin-setting machine was mistakenly left plugged in.
The two-year investigation also concluded that staff must wear earmuffs to mask the noise of balls hitting pins.
An HSE spokesman said: 'The investigation revealed that the machinery used nationally in bowling alleys did not have adequate safety features.'
Susie Squire, of the TaxPayers' Alliance, said: 'The HSE has overreacted to a one-off tragedy by wasting a fortune of taxpayers' money producing a pointless, naval-gazing report.'
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1232066/We-dont-need-wait-elf--safety-risk-assessment-real-danger.htmlWe don't need to wait for an elf & safety risk assessment if we're in real danger
By Harry Phibbs
Last updated at 11:39 AM on 30th November 2009
Times are hard. We are still in a recession. Yet the Health and Safety Executive has managed to get hold of £250,000 of our money for a report on, of all things, ten pin bowling.
It concludes it can be ‘very dangerous’ if players walk down the aisles to knock pins over by hand. Without doubt. But there is no evidence of this happening.
The HSE wants photoelectric beams installed so that the machines that align the pins will cut off automatically if anyone walks up the lane. But this is a very expensive solution in search of a problem.
John Ashbridge, of The Ten-Pin Bowling Proprietors Association says: ‘I have been in this industry for 40 years and I have never known any member of the public injured by a bowling pinsetter. I have never heard of anybody going near the pins.’
There was admittedly a horrible accident in Barking in 2006 when a technician was crushed to death after a pin-setting machine was mistakenly left plugged in. But that was tragically about the failure to apply existing safeguards. Looking to come up with an array of irrelevant safeguards on the basis that ‘something must be done’ is an emotional rather than a practical response.
The Health and Safety Executive is a Quango with a budget of £210 million and 3,582 staff (only a third of whom are actually front line staff getting their hands dirty carrying out safety checks.) They are happy to splash out money on advertising and fees to celebrities to get attention. In the past they have sponsored the weather forecast on a commercial radio station and paid England footballer Ian Wright to appear in a film they made about asbestos.
It’s not just the world of ten-pin bowling which is at risk. The HSE backs applying health and safety constraints to the police as well. Last month they produced a report which lamented that the public have an ‘unrealistic expectation’ that police officers will put themselves in danger.
Incredibly the HSE said that heroic police officers who put themselves are risk to protect the public would not actually be prosecuted for breaching health and safety guidelines. Such is the crazy world we live in that this concession was greeted with relief.
But HSE inspectors still go sniffing around the police, judging ‘the adequacy of the Force's policies, risk assessments and procedures.’
The HSE should keep out of the police's hair. If I'm under attack I don't want the police carrying out a risk assessment before coming to my assistance.
There do need to be sensible safety rules - there are still far too many accidents on places such as building sites. It is hardly in the interests of employers to have workplace accidents and so practical guidance will be welcomed. But these rules need to be based on common sense rather than box ticking.
There needs to be a focus on priorities rather than the current HSE trend for empire building. At the moment it seems they are always looking for new areas to stick their noses into like a bored child.
In fairness even the HSE’ own chairman, Judith Hackitt, accepts there is sometimes a problem with risk aversion. ‘I have two daughters in their 20s -both of whom are still students,’ she told a Conference last week on health and safety for students.
‘One is a graduate marine biologist. When she did her dissertation as part of her degree course she chose a project which involved entirely literature-based research, but nonetheless she was handed a 20-page risk assessment to complete. That's my case study contribution to this event to highlight what constitutes non-sensible, non-proportionate behaviour which sends out the wrong message to students.’
But the HSE does not show a sense of proportion when it comes to its own arrangements. The Labour peer Lord Berkeley was shocked when he visited their offices to see notices instructing staff not to move chairs but to summon a porter to do it instead. ‘Do not lift tables or chairs without giving 48 hours notice to HSE management,’ it says. At another meeting Lord Berkeley attended the HSE sent their staff home because there was an inch of snow.
Often the claims the HSE makes to being balanced in their approach are disingenuous. For example with schools they claim to be all for school trips. Yet before undertaking a school trip the teacher must go off and carry out a risk assessment – and even before that the head teacher must assess the teacher as capable of carrying out the risk assessment. [emphasis added]
The Governors should be notified before a proposed school trip to review ‘monitoring and audit mechanisms,’ apparently. A special meeting of parents should be held. There must be an Educational Visit Coordinator and an Educational Visits Policy. Is it any wonder if a hard pressed school teacher gives up on the whole idea?
It’s clear to me the HSE should be closed down. Health and Safety checks should be entirely handed over to local councils (rather than having the confusing duplication with the HSE which exists at present.) This means there should be at least some restraint because of the pressure from local residents for such checks to be sensible and cost effective rather than unduly officious.
Is it too much to hope that some semblance of sanity could then be restored?
I apologize for such a long post. I just don't know where to begin.....is this what our great nation is going to devolve to? I cannot believe that in order for a teacher to take a field trip they must do a risk assessment and be qualified to do the risk assessment. Next you will see everybody with their own
bubble hamster ball so they don't get injured. What about personal responsibility instead of depending upon the .gov to take care of you? Sorry I just have to rant a little this is just so stupid.
