Many people complain about Health & Safety legislation – accusing it of creating unnecessary bureaucracy. While this may be true to some extent, it appears that there are a lot of people out there not blessed with much common sense, who could do with a helping hand.
In our fulfilment centre for instance, we have a complete bad on open bladed knives – instead opting for blunt box openers, enclosed strapping cutters and self-retracting knives. Maybe this is overkill, but what would happen if, when packing an order, someone were to accidentally pack their cutter? How liable would the company be to who ever handled the box?
You might say this is unlikely, and I’d probably have agreed until the above consignment of leaflets turned up at our fulfilment centre, complete with a 6 inch kitchen knife tucked inside. The tell tale traces of tape glue up the blade suggested that this wasn’t a careless misplacement of someone’s cutlery, but that this knife was previously being used to open boxes on a daily basis.
I think you’ll agree that when handled in the postal system, it’s not infeasible for the blade to pierce the cardboard carton, driven through by the weight of leaflets, and subsequently to cause injury. When you consider that 30% of our insurance premium is due to people in the US suing everyone left, right and centre – I’d say this poses quite a large risk to both safety and the business responsible.
