ABSTRACT
A chemical company laid on a demonstration for its laboratory staff to underline the dangers of not wearing goggles. A similar own goal was scored by an engineering company in 1976 when a film was shown to bring home to the workforce the blood-chilling effects of not wearing safety goggles. A baffling instance of a safety device being overriden by the man who conceived it is shown in an accident at Paris in 1902. Augusto Severo designed and built a motor-driven navigable balloon. He had taken the double safeguard approach and incorporated two safety valves to relieve the pressure of the hydrogen as it expanded at the high altitude he expected to reach. A management meeting decided on a scheme to persuade its work force to wear safety helmets; a five pound note would be given to the first two employees seen, in randomly selected groups, wearing their hard hats.
