New EU directives making scanning over MPE 'illegal'. Discuss

[Doc]

We have hearing protection, eye protection, skin protection and pretty much everything else protection. The employees don't particularly like it, but I know as a company I am comfortable that we are doing everything possible to protect our employees from harm, and have therefore minimised the risk of our company been prosecuted.
Jem

Just about any construction site I visit now has a mandatory safety glasses, gloves, boots, helmet and high viz policy, just to walk on to site.

None of the above are compulsory under statute law (though most are a good idea).

Since the adoption of the glasses and gloves "rule" a couple of years ago, we have had many injuries directly caused by those items of PPE. We have had hand injuries caused by gloves getting snagged on rotating machinery and snagged on scaffold clips. We have had avoidable trips and falls caused by steamed up and totally unecessary safety glasses, but nobody cares.

Prior to these "rules" we would risk assess and if the operation being carried out required eye protection then we would state it in the method statement.

Where does it stop? Why not make everybody wear full fire fighting gear in case there is a blaze, and a parachute in case they need to jump to safety?

Hence the condom quip.

These rules are being introduced by ex grads with no clue about the real world and an ego to fluff.

Check out the construction of the Empire State building, the injury/death toll was no worse than any modern construction site, in fact a project I'm managing at the moment has a projected death toll of 3!

[smokeAndMirrors]

It would seem sensible that the degree of precautions one takes should be in some sense proportional to the risk involved.

As I understand it, barring one recent event in which some f**king idiot Russian turned a pulsed CuBr laser probably intended for surgery onto the audience, there have been no significantly bad happenings attributable to laser displays since they were used for entertainment purposes in the 1960s (and before health and safety standards cottoned on). This includes, presumably, use of powerful gas lasers, as well as a gazillion night clubs scanning for hours on end.

Of course this should not be an excuse for doing nothing. The audience expects to be safe, and rightly so. What I'm saying is that to me there seems to be a gap, nay a chasm, between what is theoretically hazardous and what actually is. Covering our backs with paperwork and measurement is one thing - having an informed debate about the real risks is another.

[The_Doctor]

I agree with Jem. I could get all metaphysical about it but it's enough to say that a lack of recognised standards is what is at stake here. In an effort to nail that down, the Powers that Be will hoik out any unwitting individual who makes the first big example of themselves. There IS hysteria implicit in that, and it doesn't matter whose it is. The difficulty is simple: standard practise when the hunt is up is to keep your head down, and that's kind of hard to do if you're pointing gaudy lights into a room full of paying punters amonsgt whom the Men in Black might be lurking like so many Nazguls.

So the thing to do is start nailing down some quantities and qualities, and keep good records. Several people in the last page or so kept reiterating the same daft question: "How can they enforce it?" I already spelled out a way, no-one seems to have noticed! I described a timed laser power measurement that could go a long way to proving if a show was safe, and specifically mentioned that owning one might keep a show operator safe as well as pacifying nervous club owners if some reputable firm starts selling them with calibration records.

As to deliberately breaking the agreed limits and faking declarations, on your head be it. Except that it isn't just your head, if some halfwit stands on a table and sticks their eyeball in air zero. If you tell them it's a ten watt beam (and it is) and they are daft enough to use tools or structures they were barred from using, to get their dose, that's their lookout, but if you told them it was ONE watt and they get ten, they can sue you to oblivion. They won't even have to, the government will do it for them, and you can't fight that. You'll be their test case, and they will NOT want to lose.

Re fog attenuation, forget it, it's too intangible to measure reliably. The assumptions will be based on what happens if the fog clears, as it might if a door is opened to a windy night.

[The_Doctor]

...just about all of the "health and safety has gone mad" type rules and stories that you hear ... are caused by "jobsworth" type individuals adding their own twists and interpretations to the by and large common sense rules. Ala: the ladder rule.

The government says that ladders should only be used to gain access to a working platform or for simple tasks that can be performed with one hand; the construction industry interprets that as it being illegal to even draw a picture of a ladder unless you are wearing a safety harness, life jacket and condom.

That is brilliant! Fortunately when I have worked on a building it was a private home and I trusted my own judgement on when goggles helped prevent dust, or steamed up to the point where I wasn't safe up a ladder. Likewise there are times when heavy boots are meaningless if light trainers enable you to leap aside with precision and speed when needed. Maybe sometimes this H+S fetish will be given the rigorous psychoexamination it deserves, but until then we'll just have to be careful in case someone sues us because the Children were Startled! (Now Show joke which I'll leave to someone else in the UK to explain to others if it has to be done).

[norty303]

As to deliberately breaking the agreed limits and faking declarations, on your head be it.

Merely speculating from the other end how it'd be hard to prove the contrary.

I think there is another factor here, in that for the operators at the majority of our levels, we're 'playing' with relatively low powers (in comparison to 5W YAGs, etc), in as much as even unattenuated, in a lot of situations it's hard to go massively over 10xMPE providing your nearest audience target is to the rear of the room. So the chance of an injury incidence to even start to fire up these processes is even more reduced.

[Jem]

Just a quick final note here...

As I see it, the real change in the UK's safety laws came about in three parts.

Firstly, when the HSE moved from the enforcement of 'laid down in statute' rules, to one of issuing 'guidelines', this switched the burden of proof onto the individual, be it a company or whatever, to prove that something was safe beyond reasonable doubt.

Secondly, the rise of the 'no win no fee' lawyers who were prepared to have a go at anyone in a bid to try and claim compensation. I hate the way they prowl our pedestrianised areas asking every one who passes if they've had an accident recently , Grrrrr, it makes my blood boil.

Thirdly, I also blame the courts and the UK legal system for allowing said compensation claims to get out of hand. Many years ago if someone tripped up on a pavement it was simply an unfortunate accident. Now, someone is always to blame, and compensation, sometimes huge compensation, quite often completely out of all proportion to the injury is involved. Can you really blame the employers for taking measures to ensure they are not sued, even if this involves lots of silly rules and protective workgear.

It pains me to say that we have silly rules and protective workgear in our business, if our staff choose not to wear/use them it is a disciplinary matter. These rules are there for the sole purpose of covering our backs should there be an accident. Of course, it is impossible for us to monitor the staff every minute of every day and we know that when our backs are turned they choose not to wear said protective equipment. However, having the rules there and enforcing them whenever we see a transgression means we are protected should there ever be an accident, even if a 'no win no fee' lawyer becomes involved.

Anyway, that's just me having a rant.. this is getting too much off topic now so i'll crawl back into my teapot

Jem

[White-Light]

It will be up to the club/venue/operator to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the show was safe. Taking this to the extreme, if, during a visit by the HSE, the projector was assessed as having 'variable' output or in other words capable of exceeding the MPE. I think you would be on an uphill struggle to offer a defence in court if the HSE decided to prosecute. Don't ever underestimate the powers of the HSE, they're not at all stupid and will call in 'experts' if they don't have the necessary knowledge themselves.

Imagine you're a club who have a visit from the HSE, they come armed with someone of the calibre of James Stewart or John O'Hagan et al. Do you think for a minute they would be fooled by two sets of paperwork or a programmable keyboard... I think not.

I'm not being alarmist here, i'm just playing Devil's advocate

Jem

I see where you're coming from Jem but even if John O'Hagan turns up, they're still going to have to prove that the law was broken. Just because you have a more powerful BAM mapped to a key doesn't prove you used it and as Norty said, nearly every projector used to audience scan is more powerful than what is safe to use in the crowd simply because you can't have 50 projectors all of differing powers and take the one that matches the venue with you. At the end of the day, economics dictate building a machine thats suited to the biggest venue you're ever likely to service and then attenuatng it for smaller localities.

Whereas with the 10xMPE standard the burden of proof is reversed, thats civil not criminal law. So far as criminal law is concerned its still up for the HSE to prove beyond reasonable doubt that levels were exceeded. Without measurements or lots of eye injuries in the audience I think thats going to be pretty impossible.

I still see this as being very difficult to enforce therefore.

BTW when I said 2 sets of figures above, I didn't actually mean 2 sets of paperwork, just 2 sets of calculations, the ones you'er going to use and the paperworked ones to show the HSE.

I think the new laws are a good thing and could go a long way to helping the industry.

Mark

I still have to disagree on this one Mark. To my thinking if clubs are banned effectively from using the 10xMPE standard by H&S rules for their employees, they're more likely to just ignore the set standards and do their own thing. For those that choose not to abide to the standard MPE limitation therefore, I think its more likely they'll just install what they think is right rather than what is right by the 10xMPE standard. After all, if the HSE don't recognise the 10XMPE standard why should they abide by it? Efefctively the new law lays rubbish to all guidlines and anyone who is inclined to break it isn't going to stick by a law that the HSE don't recognise themselves.

A couple of points arising from this interesting discussion.

But just for clarification, audience scanning is not being made illegal. It is the limit at which you can expose workers to that is being more strictly defined; this being the ELV listed in the AORD document itself (but the same as the more familiar MPE used in the product standards such as EN 60825-1:2007 etc). For the first time these become legally binding limits

In my experience I’ve yet to see any laser provider in the UK perform 10x MPE scanning. Here at least, it is all either, no scanning, 1x MPE scanning, or ‘don’t care’ scanning. (lots of the latter ☺)

The latter concerns me the most, as some providers start to use 10W+ lasers to point into people’s faces at distances less than 20m, especially using slow moving finger beam effects. But there you go.

James Stewart

As I said above James, for me this seems to make it far more likely that people will take the don't care approach. If there's no approved limit above MPE levels through this backdoor legislation, then people have no incentive to stick to the level set by ILDA and will just do their own thing.

[smogthemog]

I thought a condom was an 'anti' life jacket

[The_Doctor]

People should revert to rules instead of guidelines. 'Guidelines' were supposed to make people feel less restricted, but instead, paranoia has caused increasing restriction and expense because people don't really know where they stand, and are not really allowed any personal responsibility anymore despite the fact that this IS what 'guidelines' were supposed to allow! It's the same logic that makes bullying a greater problem in 'liberal' schools. I'm all for real liberalism but the kind that turns a blind eye and doesn't properly impose a minimal set of acceptable rules allows worse things to happen. Maybe this is why these fake liberalisms are happening, it's a hell of a way to profit, for those willing to exploit them.

On the subject of the 10xMPE thing, that's a disaster for ILDA public relations if it's their concept on how to do things. Never mind whether or not I don't fully understand it, MOST people don't, and that's the problem, because most people never will. What we have is a trade association saying that the MPE, a carefully defined limit to exposure to strong light sources for anyone in a workplace, doesn't apply to a large number of people in a confined space. When a trade association says to a regulating authority "Ok for you, but we can take ten times your limit if we choose to", it's a very bad way to negotiate joint responsibility. Never mind the odd yahoo with his 300mW lightsaber, the ILDA will do far more damage to the industry in the long run if this 10xMPE stuff is coming from them. No matter how much other maths people apply, that 'tenfold limit' will be a hard lesson for the public to unlearn once they get wind of it. I strongly suggest get rid of this concept before it's too late to undo any damage.

Again, I see claims of 'difficult to enforce'. You wish! How many times must it be said? FAST. LOGGING. METERS.

Jem:
I like your icon, Sam I am.

[JStewart]

The ‘Reverse Burden of Proof’ under the HASAWA (s.40) is one of the rare occasions where the principle is valid for UK Criminal Law.

As for a practical solution to the problem if enforcement gets tighter, or people want to start protecting themselves against any potential problems. I think, when released, hardware such as Pangolin’s PASS will go a good way to protecting everyone concerned.

Beam Attenuation Maps, Escape Keys and the like are not sufficient protection at present. Both cannot be guaranteed to fail-safe. And in any event, they only action the software, and not the hardware on the other end of an ILDA lead.

Can you believe that around the time of the Russian incident with the pulsed laser, I was checking the safety of an installation over here in the UK that was using a 40W QCW Nd:YAG, in a large arena, and the supplier was adamant that physical masking of the output aperture was not necessary, because Pangolin’s BAMS would prevent beams going into the seated area?! – Wrong. And as the subsequent demonstration that followed illustrated, things can fail, and lasers can end up in places they shouldn’t. (they’d apparently set the blanking delay wrong in the pallet)

It took less than a minute to install a physical foil mask. - We spent more time ‘discussing’ the merits of the foil over software.

Anyway, back to the discussion. More intelligent hardware built into the projector will be a good way of overcoming the casual pressing of the wrong keys, loading in different pallets, or computer malfunction.

The new guidance on this for laser shows issued across the EU states that ‘software blanking should only be used if it is certified to appropriate safety critical standards’. IEC’s 60825-3:2008 ( the safety guidance for laser shows ) also suggests that ‘software masks’ should be evaluated under reasonably foreseeable single fault conditions.

Hopefully when Pangolin’s PASS becomes widely available then it will help to overcome the current situation. Then we need a fail-safe ‘Beam Brush’

Physical Masks for QCW lasers will always be necessary though.

James Stewart