Old, live cable

[BeeLZeebub]

Idiots in every industry I suppose .... it's just that there are those professions where blunders can have unfortunate consequences ... I'm thinking electricians, surgeons, colonic irrigation practitioners and so on

 

[JohnW2]

Idiots in every industry I suppose .... it's just that there are those professions where blunders can have unfortunate consequences ... I'm thinking electricians, surgeons, colonic irrigation practitioners and so on

Sure, as you say, there will inevitably be some. However, it would be nice to think that this happened despite generally 'adequate' training, not because of inadequate training.

One of the problems, of course, is that, unlike the situation in so many walks of life (certainly surgeons, and countless other trades/professions, but not so sure about colonic irrigators!), electricians are totally unregulated - i.e. they don't have to be 'registered' (or even trained/qualified) in any way to work as an 'electrician'. If there were regulation and 'registration', then with that would presumably come minimum requirements for (and oversight of) the training that was required.

Kind Regards, John

 

[syl]

One of the problems, of course, is that, unlike the situation in so many walks of life (certainly surgeons, and countless other trades/professions, but not so sure about colonic irrigators!), electricians are totally unregulated - i.e. they don't have to be 'registered' (or even trained/qualified) in any way to work as an 'electrician'. If there were regulation and 'registration', then with that would presumably come minimum requirements for (and oversight of) the training that was required.

Kind Regards, John

Plenty of surgical procedures are carried out by non-doctors. You could operate on your friend (with his consent) on the kitchen table with a rusty spoon without fear of prosecution (don't try it on your dog though, that would be illegal unless you are a registered vet).

 

[ban-all-sheds]

I have had "electricians" asking me why the "safe" neutral they have just disconnected on a live lighting circuit has just severely bitten them...

IIRC, we used to have someone here who described himself as not just an electrician but an engineer, who genuinely believed that if you touched a line conductor in which a lot of current was flowing you'd get a worse shock than touching one with no or little current flowing in it.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Plenty of surgical procedures are carried out by non-doctors. You could operate on your friend (with his consent) on the kitchen table with a rusty spoon without fear of prosecution

Would "surgery" of that nature qualify as a valid exemption from the general principle that people cannot lawfully consent to wounding and GBH?

 

[JohnW2]

IIRC, we used to have someone here who described himself as not just an electrician but an engineer, who genuinely believed that if you touched a line conductor in which a lot of current was flowing you'd get a worse shock than touching one with no or little current flowing in it.

It's quite a long time since I wheeled out my classic anecdote - so, for those who haven't heard it before ... an 'electrician' who, on seeing an electric shower in my house which had a pretty long feed from its (RCD-protected) CU, insisted that I needed to have an additional RCD closer to the shower because "even if there were a 30mA fault current at the shower, it would have reduced to far less than 30mA, and hence would not result in RCD operation, by the time it got back to the CU through all that cable"!

Kind Regards, John

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Brilliant!

So if I put in nice long cables, and the current flowing through the loads sort of ebbs away by the time it gets back to the meter, I can save money!

Why has this knowledge been kept from me?

 

[stillp]

IIRC, we used to have someone here who described himself as not just an electrician but an engineer, who genuinely believed that if you touched a line conductor in which a lot of current was flowing you'd get a worse shock than touching one with no or little current flowing in it.

I used to know a Senior Lecturer in electrical engineering who was convinced that broadcasters measured the size of their audiences by measuring the current in the transmitting aerial.

 

[BeeLZeebub]

Plenty of surgical procedures are carried out by non-doctors. You could operate on your friend (with his consent) on the kitchen table with a rusty spoon without fear of prosecution (don't try it on your dog though, that would be illegal unless you are a registered vet).

.... And as for barbers, as if it's not bad enough that they chop away with impunity (they know you wont remember who did it when you go back next time), they force you to sit in front of a mirror that makes you look like a 44-yr old bloke with two kids (ahem), and they then cap off the indignity by asking if you'd like your eye brows trimmed. There's an industry that needs some regs ...... makes my blood boil ......

 

[JohnW2]

Plenty of surgical procedures are carried out by non-doctors. You could operate on your friend (with his consent) on the kitchen table with a rusty spoon without fear of prosecution

Would "surgery" of that nature qualify as a valid exemption from the general principle that people cannot lawfully consent to wounding and GBH?

The first sentence of what syl says is obvioulsy true. Increasingly numbers of 'legitimate' (e.g. within NHS) surgical procedures are being undertaken by people who are not medically qualified. However, the people who undertake thse procedures are usually very highly trained, in some cases arguably more so (in relation to a limited range of procedures) than medically-qualified surgeons. Famously, 20+ years ago, the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford pioneered the use of non-medically-qualified technicians to undertake some parts of heart surgery.

As for syl's second sentence, and your comment, things are far less clear. Once upon a time, what syl said was essentially true. However, the whole question of 'consent to assault' got famously stirred up by case law generated in the early 90s, when courts all the way up to the House of Lords and the European Court of Human Rights ruled that 'assault' committed in the context of sado-masochistic sexual practices remained a criminal offence even in the presence of consent by the 'victim' (Google "Operation Spanner").

I'm not sure whether there has been any subsequent case law generated in relation to 'amateur surgery', but there has certainly been a fairly widespread feeling that the courts would very probably take the same attitude to this as they had to SM practices.

Kind Regards, JOhn

 

[JohnW2]

Brilliant! So if I put in nice long cables, and the current flowing through the loads sort of ebbs away by the time it gets back to the meter, I can save money! Why has this knowledge been kept from me?

Exactly! He also came out with some other gems, but that one had to take the prize!

Kind Regards, John