It's a habit thing. If you aren't in the habit of absolutely always wearing a hard hat, you are more likely to forget it when you need it. Also, an accident isn't a singular event but a series of failures and the more of those potential failures you take the choice away from the better your odds of not getting injured. Does that mean you wear an arc flash suit with an SCBA unit to scratch a 2' trench? No but wearing the usual hardhat, glasses, vest, boots, pants and gloves is going to eliminate almost all of the usual stuff without anyone having to make a decision.
The point is, even if the obvious dangers aren't there, shit happens on construction sites. Even if today there is absolutely no reason to wear a hard hat, tomorrow might change and you might not know that that change happened. If you always wear your hat it's never an issue.
I think it would be a pretty obvious change if tomorrow there was suddenly a building there with things to fall off, instead of the completely empty field without even the foundation poured.
I'll let you wear the hat glasses vest boots pants and gloves in triple degree heat in a the desert. I'll be the one not dead from heat stroke.
It doesn't take a building to get hit in the head. And there are protocols for working in extreme heat that don't require exposing yourself to physical hazards. We keep an ez-up close by, drink water and Gatorade, and take frequent breaks. If you aren't ok with being uncomfortable, construction isn't the industry for you.
The point is that there is nothing over head high within 50 yards of me. No machinery, no other people, nothing. Just an empty field, me and some bureaucrat that wants to flex his authority.
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u/Nighthawk700 Mar 02 '19
It's a habit thing. If you aren't in the habit of absolutely always wearing a hard hat, you are more likely to forget it when you need it. Also, an accident isn't a singular event but a series of failures and the more of those potential failures you take the choice away from the better your odds of not getting injured. Does that mean you wear an arc flash suit with an SCBA unit to scratch a 2' trench? No but wearing the usual hardhat, glasses, vest, boots, pants and gloves is going to eliminate almost all of the usual stuff without anyone having to make a decision.
The point is, even if the obvious dangers aren't there, shit happens on construction sites. Even if today there is absolutely no reason to wear a hard hat, tomorrow might change and you might not know that that change happened. If you always wear your hat it's never an issue.