PREVENTION OF ACCIDENT.

Putaruru Press, Volume II, Issue 25, 3 April 1924, Page 2

PREVENTION OF ACCIDENT.

THE jury’s finding that the fatality at the Waipa bridge construction woi-k on Friday last was purely accidental was undoubtedly quite the right one, it being- clearly shown that in the case of an experienced workman such as the unfortunate victim there was no non-customary risk in the work he was doing at the time. In fact artisians of many trades are required to take similar and greater risks day after day without any safeguards except their own carefulness and experience. But in this particular case the loss of a valuable life in such a simple manner certainly gives cause for pausing, and the remarks made by Mr. Rabone seem to us to open an avenue along which the Public Works Department might set a useful lead to private contractors and others. We refer to Mi-. Rabone’s reference to the fact that a net under the full extent of the superstructure might be used in future to prevent accidents of this particular nature on bridge construction work. These accidents have evidently been so very few and far between that such a provision lias not yet been considered at all necessary, but if even one such life as the late Mr. Vance’s is saved in the course of years by such a safeguard, which would probably not be a costly one, it should be well worth while. The matter is one which apparently the Department might do well to forward.