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Comment by bowsamic | Hacker News Reader

Sadly no better here in Germany, which surprised me. In the UK health and safety is much more extreme. Here in Germany it’s rare to see workers taking any kind of safety precautions

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My dad, who is permanently sunburnt from his half century in construction (and wasn’t terribly into most other safety measures against abstract risks), tsk-tsks the laxity of German road crews allowing workers to wear shorts in the summer. Sturdy jeans go a long way as basic leg protection, and he couldn’t imagine any construction worker in much hotter Texas forgoing them, no matter how much they have to be yelled at about hardhats.

The main thing I noticed in Germany was open construction sites with little to protect pedestrians walking through, lack of any kind of masks when working with fumes or dust, no ear protection, and no hardhats.

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.

I've seen some behavior on German job sites that blows my mind as an Australian (and from this discussion it's pretty clear Aussie tradies aren't saints).

Zero compliance with hard hats, straddling a 4th story window without fall protection, incredibly sketchy scaffolding, dust everywhere etc. I was half expecting a worker fatality at some point.

Though I'm not sure I'd blame the Germans (other than for very lax oversight) it was an entirely Eastern European work crew. Which seems to be the case for many job sites around here. Bunch of young folks hustling for money to take home with zero regard for health and safety.

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