Comment by globular-toast
2 years ago
But still the "real men" on UK building sites and trades shun PPE. It's just a dumb man thing. I often wonder if they think every day there's a chance of a woman seeing and thinking how manly and hot they are for not even needing wimpy protection. Here the construction vehicles have a green flashing light on to indicate that the user has a seat belt on. They get round that by just buckling up then sitting on the belt. Tbh that one seems a bit silly but there's probably a good reason for it.
Perhaps, though still my experience seeing building sites in the UK still seems to have way more health and safety and risk assessments. As I said in the other comment, in Germany it's not rare at all to see road workers with heavy machinery, fumes, and dust, who are wearing no ear protection, no goggles, no mask, and no hard hat. That would be an extremely rare sight in the UK.
I was recently in Malta and saw a bloke in shorts and t-shirt start angle grinding into the pavement in the middle of a busy road. Definitely would never see that in the UK.
Sadly that is not an uncommon sight around where I am in London, where there is a high number of Eastern European tradespeople who either know no better or simply don't care.
Doubt it has anything to do with women. More like poor long term risk assessment leading to immediate tasks and short term goals being prioritized over more abstract longer term goals.
You've probably crossed a road at a non-ideal location right? Because you had somewhere to be and you figured you were paying attention - the risk was managed. Same dynamic basically.