Accidents have a long and dishonourable history鈥攅specially when
cowboy builders are involved in jerry-building, as they were even in ancient
Babylon.
Witness this case from 1700 BC. In article 229 of the Babylonian building
code, King Hammurabi said: 鈥淚f a builder builds a house for a man and does not
make its construction firm, and the house he has built collapses and causes the
death of the owner of the house鈥攖hat builder will be put to death.鈥�
You can find more details on the history of accidents in an enjoyable paper
given by safety expert John Bond to the world鈥檚 first online conference on
safety at http://www.safety98.org, which opened earlier this month.
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This site has an impressive range of papers. Jenny Bacon, director-general
of Britain鈥檚 Health and Safety Executive, recalls that Britain鈥檚 earliest safety
legislation, in 1802, also attempted to be a guardian of factory workers鈥�
morals. It called for a 鈥渟upply to every apprentice of sufficient鈥� sleeping
accommodation (not more than two to a bed)鈥�.
If you want to test and improve safety in your workplace, then Britain鈥檚
Institution of Chemical Engineers, one of the conference sponsors, has a series
of helpful safety packages at http://www.icheme.org/she/.
Those who need official advice on safety at work could turn instead to the
Health and Safety Executive鈥檚 site at http://www.open.gov.uk/hse/hsehome. htm.
Once you鈥檙e past the opening page, this site becomes very text-heavy鈥攊t鈥檚
certainly not one for the casual surfer.
In Britain, more than 4000 people die every year as a result of accidents
in the home鈥攎ore than are killed on the roads.
But you can do your bit to cut this grim tally. Find out how to improve your
domestic safety from the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accident鈥檚 website
at http://www.rospa.co.uk/homesafe.htm.
