![\"\"](\"https:\/\/safetyeddie.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Blackpool-SC-and-Shandon-St.png\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nTwo completely separate locations. Two different jobs. Two boom lifts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And, apparently, one shared philosophy:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Protect the machine. The pedestrians have eyes.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n On Shandon Street, a boom lift was operating beside a busy public footpath. There were cones, signs, high-vis clothing and all the reassuring visual ingredients of a professionally managed job.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Excellent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Except pedestrians could still walk directly past\u2014and potentially beneath the work area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then came Blackpool.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Surely a busy shopping centre would be different?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Absolutely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There was even more tape<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The boom lift itself was beautifully surrounded. Cones positioned around it. Red-and-white tape carefully stretched across the parking area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The machine looked extremely safe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You could almost hear it whispering:<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Nobody is scratching me today.”<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Meanwhile, the public could continue walking along the building immediately below the elevated platform.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Which raises an interesting question about the purpose of an exclusion zone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Is it supposed to exclude people from the area where something could actually fall on them<\/strong>?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Or is it primarily there to give the boom lift some personal space?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Because judging by these two examples, we’ve developed a fascinating new hierarchy of controls:<\/p>\n\n\n\n 1. Protect expensive machine. Perhaps I’m overthinking it. – After all, people aren’t stupid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Surely nobody would walk underneath someone working at height.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Really?<\/p>\n\n\n\n People walk where the footpath takes them. They look at their phones. They talk to their children. They carry shopping. And most importantly, when a work area has been left accessible, they reasonably assume someone competent has decided it is safe to walk there<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They don’t generally stop, look fifteen metres upwards and conduct their own dynamic risk assessment before continuing to Boots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And perhaps nothing will fall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Probably nothing will fall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Almost certainly nothing will fall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But “probably nothing will fall on a member of the public”<\/em> remains a surprisingly poor control measure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Blackpool setup particularly fascinated me because considerable effort had clearly gone into restricting access around the machine<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So the concept of exclusion was understood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It simply appears to have stopped travelling upwards at approximately waist height.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Maybe falling-object physics works differently in Cork.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Perhaps spanners, fixings and tools falling from elevated platforms have been trained to respect red-and-white tape located twenty metres away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I must have missed that toolbox talk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And this is where our old friend “so far as is reasonably practicable”<\/strong> enters the conversation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Closing or diverting a pedestrian route beneath overhead work?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some additional barriers?<\/p>\n\n\n\n A properly positioned exclusion zone?<\/p>\n\n\n\n A banksman controlling pedestrian movement where necessary?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Apparently we shouldn’t exaggerate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After all:<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Nobody has been hit yet.”<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Ah yes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The gold standard of reactive safety management.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So next time I encounter a boom lift overhead and an entirely open footpath underneath, I’ll know exactly what to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Walk confidently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Don’t look up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And if something does come falling out of the Cork sky, I shall simply be grateful that somewhere nearby\u2026 the machine was properly coned off.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" After documenting some rather creative approaches to boom-lift safety abroad, I thought it was only fair to bring the investigation […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":169,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center 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2. Protect parking spaces.
3. Deploy cones so everything looks official.
4. Pedestrians? They’ll figure it out.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/safetyeddie.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Shandon-Street-768x1024-1.jpeg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/safetyeddie.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Blackpool-SC-walking-across.png\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n