Enemies of Reason Poundshop potshots at the media moral maze.

It’s health & safety not mad enough… and I want my taxes to pay for it… er… wait… no… but… KABOOM!

That 'Kaboom!', of course, is the sound of a Daily Mail reader's head exploding* under the strain of trying to compute the fact they desperately believe in so many of the things they've been led to believe are Very Bad Indeed.

This little gem from the Hate produces some sparkling responses from Mailites, which really have to be enjoyed in the light of the usual responses to stories about health & safety, taxpayers' money and compensation/blame culture.

A pensioner has died on a level crossing; a terrible accident, of course. And other level crossing fatalities are mentioned:

Last month Kelly Mack, a 29-year-old mother of two, was killed by a 50mph train near Colchester, Essex.
One of her Ugg Boots was said to have got stuck in wooden slats beside the level crossing when the barrier was down.
• Tributes were paid today to a mother-of-two and her boyfriend who were killed when they were hit by an 80mph train. Katie Gumble, 35, and Dean Pickard, 33, died at Harlow Mill railway station in Essex at 8am yesterday. British Transport Police are investigating reports that they were having a row and tussling. A woman laying flowers at the station said: "Katie had two boys from a previous relationship. She was a lovely person."

Now, if you do a search for 'health and safety' on the Mail website, you get 39,000 stories pop up, with a handy pop-up slide show along the side of 'health and safety killjoys' - a clue to what the Mail's attitude could possibly be. But let's look a little closer at some stories.

Top police chief blasts 'health and safety Taliban' for stopping officers doing their jobs

A top police chief has condemned the "health and safety Taliban" for preventing officers from carrying out their jobs and putting lives at risk.
Sir Norman Bettison, Chief Constable of West Yorkshire Police, criticised armchair "zealots" who put health and safety before anything else and accused society of a "sleep-walking acceptance of the health and safety mantra".

That's very similar indeed to this story here:

Health and safety laws are getting in the way of the police doing their jobs properly, a Chief Constable warned.
Bernard Hogan-Howe, chief constable of Merseyside Police, said that officers faced contradictory pressures which could see them commended for bravery for taking risks which are forbidden under health and safety rules.

With comments like this underneath:

Health and Safety is just another arrow in the PC quiver. The continuing problem with many of these issues is the fact that an executive can never cease to be. In other words, if a man is employed to come up with an idea he has to continue to come up with new ideas to justify his job. So the Health and Safety Bible will just get larger and larger until we all have to qualify in H&S just to be able to leave the lounge, never mind wander out into the minefield of our own streets.
The police prosecute fewer and fewer people because the rules of engagement are so stringent that they can't be bothered with the paperwork... and who can blame them.
- Wulstan, Sutton, Surrey

Health and safety jobsworths will have this country grind to a standstill if they are left out on the loose much longer, it is not only the Police that cannot do their job, which is disastrous, it makes the rest of us hog-tied and miserable because of these dopey people.
- Rose Howard, Bucks

Health and Safety is ruining this country and stopping most people doing their jobs including children playing its ridiculous and would be funny if not so serious and sad!
- Susan K, colchester england

This country has abolished sanity and is driving us all mad with ridiculous rules and regulations. It's almost like the Kings New Clothes. When will someone else wake up to how much of our life they are spoiling. Health & safety will leave us nothing but doom and gloom.
- Linda, Hertfordshire

Not much doubt there, though Mailites were pulled in a couple of different directions there because they're not especially keen on the police either. Here's a story combining two bogeymen: health & safety and the EU!

British Government wins EU health and safety ruling

Comment:

Streuth!
If someone in the European Commission thinks Health and Safety Laws are not being applied stringently enough in the U.K., it makes one's eyes water to imagine what it would be like if they were applied even more stringently.

Everything bad ever can be connected to health & safety:

A school has denied banning pupils from wearing knotted ties because of health and safety fears.

Council bosses ban 'safety hazard' doormats

And so on, and so on. You get the idea. So basically health and safety is something which ruins our fun, makes our life a misery, stops us from being British and enjoying ourselves, and is generally A Bad Thing. But... what's this on the story about the pensioner's death on a level crossing?

Either introduce efficient braking on trains or make them slow up. No motorist would get away with saying he sounded his horn and only managed to stop a quarter of a mile past the incident.
- Irxin, Devon

Yes, because trains are, on the whole, about the same weight as a family saloon, aren't they.

We don't have the passenger rail system you do in the UK, which is unfortunate. Yet I cannot understand how so many people are killed at these crossings. Surely it must be coincidence? How difficult is it to cross these tracks? How many people need to die? This is four people accidentally killed in a week. I simply don't understand how or why rail tracks are such a big hazard.
- Patricia, Canada

Big metal things called trains?

These crossings should be designed in such a way that it's impossible for one to trap one's foot.
'Health & Safety' obviously only want to know if it's about money.
- Luke, Chester

Cryptic. It's a health and safety matter, and they should be involved, but they're not, so it's all a big conspiracy about money! Yes, that's solved that one.

Why not wait until the train has passed before attempting to cross and look where you are stepping.
- John., Eastbourne U.K.

That's more what I was expecting: a thoroughly nasty comment to insult a dead person. Mailites back on form there. And...

Sorry, but why are all these people crossing railway lines when the barriers are obviously down?!
- S, Wiltshire

The story kind of said that there weren't barriers. If you'd taken the time to read it before spouting forth. But...

I hate crossings and this sort of thing is my worst nightmare, it's about time something was done to make these crossings safer.
- Barb, Southampton, England

But wouldn't that be... health and safety killjoys ruining our fun?

I think crossings like these should be replaced with footbridges. Also why not an emergency phone so the signal man can be contacted to stop the traffic. They have these in Datchet which is on the same line.
- Adam Hester, Marlow, Bucks

But wouldn't that be... spending taxpayers' money and therefore theft from Gordy McBottler on the PC gone mad elf'n'safety Taliban? No...?

Why don't trains slow down before crossings?
- T.B, Nottingham, England

For heaven's sake, don't you have automatic barriers and audiosignals on your railway crossings in GB to warn of oncoming trains? Talk about behind the times!
My condolences to the poor woman's family and especially to her friend who had to see the whole thing.
- Sue, Switzerland

But wouldn't those safety measures be H&S gone mad?! And wouldn't paying for improvements be taxpayers' money being spent by the state, which is always roundly clobbered by Mail commenters whenever there's a story about anything ever.

Imagine for a moment that a footbridge had been built, barriers installed and so on, and this tragedy had never happened as a result. A quick FOI request later, it'd be 'Bonkers health and safety Nazis think we're too STUPID to cross the railway - and guess who's paying?!?!?!!' - a classic damned if you do, damned if you don't. What amazes me is how H&S can be so demonised one minute, but as long as you don't refer to it by name, for fear of pushing the 'PC gone mad' buttons, it's all right the next. If only the person who died had been an asylum seeker or a Polish immigrant, I think a sight more heads would have exploded over the Home Counties as they struggled to work out which way to turn on this one...

* I imagine it's like that bloke in 'Scanners'. Which brings back memories of watching a grainy VHS back in about 1985 round my mate Darren's house. It would have been terrifying, too, had he not said: "This is the bit where his head blows up. This is it! This is it... wait... here it comes... urgh!"

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