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When Safety Runs Amok--To Whom It May Concern

From Top Gear.

"We will be trying to arrange some simple public spectacles - launching a helium-filled balloon from a town square, for example - and then showing you, the viewer, just how much paperwork, jobsworthery and all-round catastrophic arse-ache this involves.

How many precautions have to be put in place to prevent people being hurt by balloons; how much cover has to be arranged before a balloon can be launched without threatening the excess on someone's professional indemnity insurance; the size of the ‘method statement' that has to be circulated and signed off before the council will allow a balloon to be released from a town square, and how far away the spectators will have to stand in order to satisfy the requirements of the risk assessment. And so on.

You think I'm joking about the balloon. Sadly not. Other shows we'd have difficulty putting on for your entertainment include riding around on a bicycle without drinking some water and walking along without wearing the right shoes.

And, inevitably, driving around in a car. Now I look at it, I'm amazed Top Gear has survived this long, because the health and safety implications of being in control of a motor vehicle when you might be dehydrated or a bit tired are so hideous that we should have given up years ago."

This is what's on our horizon--Nancy Pelosi (or some other congress-critter) telling us what to do, what we CAN do, and when to do it...all in the name of public health and safety. We will have become one with the bubble wrap!

Posted by Cute at 6:37 PM

Labels: health, politics, social issues