Went for my usual run around the park this morning. Part way around there is a swale - the path goes down, over a "bridge" and back up again. Total elevation change about 1m. (Just past the mosque for those that know South Hagley).

There was a kids bike race doing loops of the park. Poor wee mites were made to stop at the top, get off their bikes and walk down / over / up the bridge and then get back on their bikes on the other side

Apparently a bit too dangerous having kids cycle on that part of the course. Walking much safer. And to add context the kids were going so fast I was able to over take a few of them.

Needless to say there were a few piles up at the front end as the kids had to come to a screeching halt before getting off their bikes.

Unfortunately I only have a limited concentration span. More than one type of forum resource and I get a bit befuddled.

I won't be doing anything.

Same approach as current. Don't care what you do in your private life.

Won't be implementing testing

But give us an indication you are impaired or not competent to carry out your job we will manage it.

Current approach is: impairment = sent to guidance / counselling etc. Caught selling. Fired.

I suspect not many. It will be the same old response under the old legislation. Biff a bit of PPE in and she'll be right as long as its worn. Our approach explains why the only problems we have with health are from those who smoke.

I'm surprised this is news. Workplace Exposure Standards have been around for ages. Its why we have air extraction, ventilation and PPE along with air monitoring and health monitoring.

That kind of job would just suit the school yard tittle tattle. Might be a promotion for spotting spulling mistakes on intert forums.

Anyone dense enough to go to TV expecting an education is going to be too dense to take on any "correct use" message insisted upon by the Safety Police.

The more rules you have the more some of us like to break them.

My new grump for the day. Immigration has refused a work visa for an employee.

Apparently "Concentration skills" isn't a competency recognised by Immigration NZ so we can't recruit on that basis. Oh well, I'll just go and hire some numbskulls and wait for their lack of concentration to result in lost fingers and crap product.

Whatever they do doesn't seem to stop buses running people over.

Kudos to Our Prime Minster and Andrew Little. Good to see them cooking up a public feed of artery clogging bacon at Waitangi WITHOUT the required Health Safety Gloves!

Seriously. That's just nonsense. There are over 800 bicycle deaths in the USA. IN NZ we have a few cycles deaths every year. Should we ban bikes? Damn right we should with their horrid lycra covered bums and holier than though cycle ways.

We dont have a H&S Committee. Instead having an Safety Advocates group. They dont have objectives. Their purpose is to be a communication conduit on safety issues.

1) 20 hours more than adequate. 5 might be closer to the mark.

2) List what you are expected to achieve. Then list the behaviours your stakeholders want to see from you

3) Committees should be site based. For an average team of 30 people the need for a committee ought to be questioned.

You are pre-supposing "Safety Culture" is a thing and we ought to have one. How about instead we focus on organizational culture.

Heres an example. A safety culture will come up with slogans such as "think safe". How about we have an organisation culture with a slogan of "Think". That way you can apply it across all operations.

What about getting rid of "Zero Harm" and replacing it with say "Zero Loss".

Or "Safety is our no. one priority" with "Staying in business is our number one priority".

Howabaout we flag away safe behaviours and focus on efficient behaviours.

Rather than thinking how safety can be done differently, how about thinking of how a job can be done differently.

The CEO has the prerogative of calling anything whatever he likes. But what he can't do is call something "Safety Sensitive" and then apply random drug testing if its not.

The courts have said "safety sensitive" is within a wharf limits (Maritime Union of New Zealand Inc v TLNZ (2007),)

(re your other post on your Safety Manager. Drugs isn't the issue. He is patently incompetent and should be without a job)

Worrying to hear Minister of ACC totally out of his depth yesterday. The issue/context was around the number of Lime accidents and whether Lime are paying ACC levies to cover costs of accidents. ILG was asked if Lime paid levies - with the questioner inferring Lime should pay levies to help cover costs. His answer was he didn't know.

The correct answer would have been riders of Lime scooters are covered by ACC through either through the Earner premiums they pay or from the non-earner insurance account.

Its not a matter of being defensive. Though that said, I see the right to privacy as a fundamental and crucial human right that we have here in New Zealand and we should all work very hard to preserve this right. And the courts agree with me – which is why we must have such a high threshold of risk before this right can be undermined.

No matter how you sugar coat a turd, scratch under the surface and it remains a turd. While “health monitoring” may seem a pleasant coating, it is a mis-use of that procedure.

We can now go off and read up on S6 (especially subsection 3), S31 and 33 – 42 of the General Risk and Workplace management Regs as our New Year homework.

Oh dear. Seems I'm going to start the new year in disagreement - and my resolution was to be more agreeable.

So in the spirit of my new years resolution I do agree - driving is likely to be a safety sensitive task. As are very many tasks in our workplaces - which don't give us the ability to randomly test.

If we look at MBIE's definition they say "Safety-sensitive tasks are ones where impaired performance, for whatever reason, could result in an incident affecting the safety of staff or participants.You must consider whether a staff member performing a task poses a risk of significant harm to themselves or others."

This is quite different from a Safety Sensitive role, For this we rely on a higher authority - the 2012 ERA decision which defines the consequences as needing to be "catastrophic". This is a much higher level of harm than "serious"

To randomly test a person must be in a safety sensitive role or area. A "task" is a subset of "Role" and does not meet the higher "Suspicionless testing " threshold.

If you took my approach, the introduction of legalised marijuana use will make no difference. We shouldn't be poking our noses into what people do in their weekends now - just because it will be legalised gives us no greater opportunity to pry and judge. If you focus on "impairment" new legislation won't create any difference for you.

Ah, yes we do digress. Sadly, we havent got close to answering the OPS questions. I think perhaps because we don't want to face up to "safety sensitive." You seem to have a de-facto "safety sensitive" site through your "high hazards" unit definition. However your examples of a boulder hitting one person or two vehicles hitting each other does not come close to meeting the Safety Sensitive threshold. At worst, one death would be a "tragedy"

Before the OP can even consider Random drug testing there needs to be a Safety Sensitive site. Its not hard for us to imagine a plane or airport. Hundreds of passengers and $millions in capital and reputation are at risk. This is what "catastrophic" is if things go wrong

We have guidance from the ERA decision. A $300m plant with 11 full time employees and numerous contractors. Very high temperatures and pressure coming from geothermal steam. Turbines running at very high RPM. There is loads of highly flammable material. And theres large volumes of sulphuric acid on site. Man - if that thing blows she's going to blow in a big way. You would not want an impaired person behind the controls. One wrong move and your looking at a catastrophe.

How many worksites are like this. Not very many. So the issue of Random Drug testing only applies to outliers - and can't be applied as a norm.


So, in answer to the Op's question " would you classify anyone that is driving a company vehicle as being in a safety sensitive role" the answer has to be most certainly no.

I agree with you. Which is why I call "bullshit" on random testing. The hazard has not been accurately identified and there is nothing but random "controls".

If people were serious they would install interlock devices on vehicles and moving plant. With technology you now get interlocks for fixed plant in "safety Sensitive" areas.

Instead of engineering controls (which is higher up the hierarchy of controls from PPE) we want to make virtue judgements on what people do in their private lives and impose invasions of personal privacy by insisting someone piss in a pot for no just cause.