Blog: Regulatory Lunacy

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To kick off the Plant Editor's blog, Andrew Gaved considers dodgy regulations

Welcome to the first CN plant blog, or as some wag is bound to say, ‘plog’.

In these columns I am going to throw a few thoughts out into the ether and hope that some of you will be inspired (or irritated) enough to contribute your own responses.

You don’t need me to tell you that the plant industry is facing a fair few challenges from the rulemakers at the moment.

In the red corner, London’s self-appointed dust police and their apparent belief that the construction machine is one of the world’s most evil pollutants. This of course is a point worth considering when you are driving in the vicinity of any steelworks or refinery. The CPA is fighting hard to make them see sense, but is it an unwinnable war? Are hirers really going to turn down the chance of lucrative work on a point of principle? You tell me.

Then in the blue corner, the Health and Safety Executive, who seem to be working on the basis that  plant is inherently an accident waiting to happen. The latest campaign, to reduce falls from vehicles, suggests a range of improvements that manufacturers can make, but does the Executive really think that putting non-slip material on machines and giving truck drivers high-friction shoes will really reduce injuries? Even if he has Spiderman’s powers of grip, your average driver is still going to jump down from the cab, isn’t he?

Some other things to ponder:

1) When will the Olympic Development Authority actually get around to endorsing the Cesar security scheme, a decision which would kickstart the big guns of the industry into security marking their equipment?

2) Is a management team really going to buy Ainscough? And if they manage to strike a deal, what changes will they have to make?

3) Why are the antismoking laws so full of illogical things, such as: if a smoker is the sole driver of a crane, he is theoretically to continue smoking in his ‘company vehicle’, whereas if the machine is driven by two different drivers, neither of them can smoke in the cab, even if they are both smokers?

If you have a view on any of the above or you have your own tales of regulatory lunacy to share, feel free to log on and join the debate at www.cnplus.co.uk/plant