Opinions

[Nige]

I'm sure everyone must have an opinion, but just how far do you think "duty of care" should go..? At some point surely people have to take responsibility for their own actions. I suppose it begs the question of who was more culpable, a guy who makes it to 62 years of age working with equipment not knowing that you don’t go near an inflated tyre with a gas axe, or his boss who according to the court “failed to supervise him”. TBH if Iwas the boss I would have pleaded the Darwin Defence in court - basically "you can't hold me responsible if some idiot wants to get himself on the 2014 Darwin Awards list".

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-south-east-wales-29127919

 

[Nige]

That link does not seem to work. Try this one ............ http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-south-east-wales-29127919

 

[Ronsii]

If we had to 'supervise' aka babysit everyone we have had working on a project nothing would ever get done!!! usually when you bring someone onto a jobsite and ask them if they know how to use a tool and they say yes we don't go about training them in it's use... so if they lied to us and don't really know how to use it and get any kind of darwin award then I say it's on them.

 

[overworked]

In my opinion, when you hire someone you should know their competency, they should have competence for the job they are hired, the janitor should not be asked to fill in on a brain surgery, if something were to go wrong then you should have some words with the incompetent person who asked him to fill in. And sometimes in the fast paced world we work in, accidentally people overlook the simple things and someone pays that ultimate price. Work safe my friends. Overworked

 

[RoadMan1775]

You can't fix stupid. Plus some people are looking to get injured.

 

[CM1995]

I would like to know more facts about the case such as how long the poor soul who committed this stupid act was employed, the employee's work history, how many employees the company had and the company's safety record, for starters.

Can't imagine why anyone would take a gas axe to a rim with an inflated tire, it's so easy and obvious to remove the value stem first.

RIP.

 

[lantraxco]

Without knowing more about this particular incident (I won't call it an accident, because it wasn't) I would tend to split the blame between the poor sod that got killed and his immediate supervisor. One should have known better, the other should have stopped him if he didn't. Of course the good citizens of the UK and even a fair bit of the police force can't be trusted with any form of firearm or so I here, and have on occasion been imprisoned for doing harm to some criminal bent on robbing or killing them. It's partly a societal attitude that management and government should be responsible for everything, not the individual.

:my2c

 

[td25c]

Both men had some years under there belt . The supervisor David Saunders age 70 and the employee killed in the accident , Kenneth Cooke was 62 . Don't know how much either knew about the job or past experience but both are old enough to know better . Out of all the fines imposed wonder if any of the money go's to Cooke's family to help out with the loss ?

My old employer had a 3 day rule . New employee had a 3 day grace period . Boss & co workers would watch the new guy for the first 3 days . After the third day new guy got to stay or got sent down the road depending on performance in the grace period . Pretty simple .

 

[FSERVICE]

I hate to hear of anyone getting killed...BUT this guy is 62 years old & didn't know the tire was inflated/didn't check it himself!!! come on now!!!! its just hard for me to belive that in this day &time no one will take responceability for their actions & want to blame someone else for their stupidity!!! IMOA this is a fine example of weeding out the stupid ones, shouldn't have punished the boss for his actions!!

 

[Deeretracks]

"Saunders failed to supervise Cooke"? WTF? 90% of the time the employee knows more about performing the work than the boss that hired him. I can't imagine counting on my boss to keep me safe and supervise everything I do. He doesn't know crap about fixing equipment, that's why he hired me. He wouldn't have a clue if I was doing something dangerous even if he was standing next to me. It doesn't say what Cooke's experience was but I doubt he was a noob. Would be different if I told my 20y/o helper to remove the boom on the 365c and it fell on him. C'mon man.

 

[lantraxco]

Without evidence to the contrary, it occurs to me that the employee may have been trying to get the tire to seat on the bead in order to inflate it. The tried and true method I never use is to spray starting fluid into the tire, or fill it up with oxy/acetylene from an unlit torch, and then wave the lighted torch near the gap between tire and wheel. If the rings and locks were not just right, the explosion could have sent heavy metal flying. Just a guess.

 

[hmearth]

Employers have a duty of care to there employees and employees have a duty care to each other it doesn't matter what you do it is the way it should be but unfortunately not the way it is.
I work with some people that would step over you to avoid getting involved regardless of the situation it's the way a lot of kids are brought today and yesterday its a shame or I should say shameless.

End of the day we all pay for incompetence

 

[kshansen]

My take on this subject is employer is responsible to see that you have the proper tools, training and safety equipment to do the job assigned to you.

Now if I decide to pick up a 4 inch grinder and use cutoff wheel to cut a piece of steel and not put on a pair of heavy work gloves that are sitting on the top of my tool box and end up takiing half the nail off my left index finger is it the employers fault? Not in my book!

By the way nail has grown back about 90% so far. And yes I learned that lesson the hard way. I did report it to my boss while admitting I did something stupid.

 

[Randy88]

I think the message the courts are sending is this, nobody can afford to hire anyone, fire every employee you have now, and avoid accidents and injuries. Every safety seminar I've sat through have stated, most that get injured or killed on the job, are doing something they know better than to do, but do it anyhow, saving time or cutting corners or having a flat out brain fart moment. I'm wondering if any of these fit the scenario or maybe even more than one of them fit.

I'm really curious as to history of the company as well, along with those of other companies who have received or not received similar fines, you know to also monitor the courts history of issuing fines?

 

[oldtanker]

I want to know more. Like company safety standards at the time of the incident. Did the guy who died know there was a danger of the tire exploding? If he did then the blame should fall squarely on his shoulders.

We had a local young man who accidentally electrocuted himself. He was sent out by the company he worked for with a portable welding rig to repair a gravel conveyor. Very hot day. He apparently took off his shirt and was laying on his back on the conveyor, ran out of rod and attempted to change out the rod. He wasn't wearing gloves. When the new rod hit the holder he got zapped. The accident investigation showed that the guy had been trained that when welding the requirements were welding jacket and gloves were to be worn. He had signed an acknowledgment that he had received that training. They found the gloves and jacket in the service truck. OSHA found no fault with the company and placed all of the blame on the worker. I know the family. They were very upset that they couldn't sue the company. They wanted revenge. so like I say, I want to know what he knew and what company policy was/is.

Rick