Cerberus, it's not about "nanny state and health and safety". Totally agree about personal responsibility, but organisations make these announcements because a significant number of people DON'T take personal responsibility and would have a go at suing Network Rail, SUFC, Meadowhall etc, if they injured a fingernail through being blown over by a light breeze when on the premises. I'm not a great fan of big organisations, but get why they put these announcements out. It's a form of "insurance" to stop claims by the sort of morons who claim whiplash when their car has been lightly bumped by a scooter doing 15mph (personal experience here!). Insurance companies are no angels, but us punters aren't helped by these scammers!
Yes I fully understand that. And where has it come from? The US.
Going back, maybe 25 years or so now, I worked for a large American company and I had some exposure to the way they had to do things differently in the US to here, because it was a very litigious society. So things that we were doing here back then were not possible to do in the US, for fear of someone bringing a law suit. I remember thinking at the time, "thank God we don't have to operate like that!" but I also guessed that one day it would come here too, because we tend to mimic whatever they do.
In the US the lawyers make a fortune out of this kind of stuff and I think it's wrong. But it's here with us as well now. "Have you been injured at work?". Solicitors advertising for business, encouraging people to make claims - this kind of thing never happened in the past. What it needs is for the Courts to throw these things out and maybe some tightening up of the judicial system so that people can't bring these half-arsed claims to Court and waste everyone's time and money, when it's clear that personal responsibility has not been taken. The thing is, we've allowed it to get out of hand, so even folks who may otherwise be decent moral citizens see an opportunity to make a bit of money out of things they would have never dreamt of claiming on some years ago.
The whiplash thing is a good example. A few years ago my wife gently nudged the back of another car whilst coming to a stop. Impact speed? Maybe 5mph. There were no marks on either vehicle, no damage, not even a scratch. The driver of the car in front put a claim in for whiplash afterwards. She was perfectly fine at the time, but she got some time off work for it and we kept getting letters from the insurance company for about a year afterwards. Complete nonsense. Eventually it went absolutely nowhere thank God. But that's the kind of society we've encouraged due to being too amenable to such ridiculous claims.
I think it's about time this sort of stuff was quashed. I think the government should come out and say, "You know when it rains...things get wet and slippy - don't bother putting any claims in if you fall down at the railway station because of that - because those claims won't be heard in Court".
I'm probably being unrealistic of course.