Tractor PTO safety demonstration and accident - video and GIF

[MeJasonT]

Yep, like most dangers in life treat it like fire - only stupid people use their hands as a thermometer.
For the apparent demonstration, The presenter looks like an overweight clumsy muppet to start with (probably a failed worker who ended up doing health and safety). There are no PTO guards fitted - Its law in the UK to have them fitted although its not heavily enforced until the **** hits the fan. Pun intended.
Even then i wouldn't trust my life on the lavatory pull chain they use to secure guards.





Most farmers i know will only have all the guards fitted when the machine is delivered new. We had a purge on our family farm after a impromptu visit from the safety inspectorate and all the PTO shafts were donned with retrofit guards, cant honestly say they fitted anything like the standard of the original guards where they would have been clinched on to some sort of nylon bearing. The problem is if you buy second hand machinery the PTO shaft has usually been kept by the previous owner as a spare and as they have a standard 740 or 1800 rpm spline you usually find shafts get swapped between machines. If safety was a major concern on farms as it is in industry then farmers should be inspected more regularly, equipment re-sellers should be forced to impose safety regulations. I use the example that if you buy an electrical item from a thrift/charity store or from an auction room then if it has a plug fitted it HAS to be Portable appliance tested (PAT tested). God forbid you buy something of ebay, it might as well be a Russian revolver with a hair trigger - just point it at your head. The mantra is who is responsible for safety - we all are for ourselves and others. And yet the number of selfish narcissistic people is increasing rapidly. Bosses will still ignore the little man when he points out something unsafe and will be put down or ignored and the blase narcissistic muppet will have the bosses ear. Unfortunately the death dodgers always get away with it (oh i spend the weekend doing extreme sports hurling myself off a mountain - Good for you). Schools and university's seriously need common sense tests and it should be a pass or fail part of the curriculum.
Having said that, health and safety has gone mad, you cant control safe working practices whilst keeping idiots alive. Natural wastage should be taken into consideration, the more stupid die from their stupidity the less stupid people around. You can teach people to work safely but they will achieve it at their own level of understanding, it wont make them non stupid. Don't shake nitro for example, "i didn't shake it i just rocked it from side to side to see what it looked like". technically the training worked it wasn't shaken. If we use signs everywhere for don't do something for fear of death the planet really would have a crisis when its covered in signs. see i even do green issues.