Elf & safety strikes again: £250,000 study to tell us ten-pin bowling is dangerous

 

 

By Steve Doughty

Last updated at 11:37 AM on 30th November 2009

 

• Comments (80)
  
• Add to My Stories
  

 

 

Hidden risks? A ten-pin bowler

 

It's a peril that only a crack team of health and safety experts could have uncovered.

After two years and £250,000, they found that ten-pin bowling alleys up and down the country could be a 'very dangerous' environment for families.

They concluded that it was too easy for children or teenagers to run down lanes and get trapped in machinery that sets up the pins - even though there was no record of any such accident having happened.

The bizarre Health and Safety Executive report found that members of the public would be at risk if they walked along the 60-foot lanes to knock over pins by hand.

Its authors even considered ordering every bowling alley to put barriers across lanes. But they were forced to admit defeat - after realising that bowlers must be able to see what they are aiming at.

Their report said: ' Because customers need to see the pins and bowling balls entering the machine, managing the risk of access into the machine from the lanes is more difficult.'

Instead they have told operators to fit photoelectric beams to lanes so that pin-setting machines will cut off automatically if anyone trespasses.

John Ashbridge, of The Ten-Pin Bowling Proprietors Association, said: 'I have been in this industry for 40 years and I have never known any member of the public injured by a bowling pinsetter. I have never heard of anybody going near the pins.'

Mr Ashbridge said he had watched HSE inspectors examining a bowling centre and he found their attempts to detect possible dangers 'hilarious'.

He added: 'Some operators have now fitted photoelectric beams. They don't cause any problems - they don't stop the machines because nobody ever goes near the pins.'

 

More...

 

 

• HARRY PHIBBS: We don't need to wait for an elf & safety risk assessment if we're in real danger
  

 

The HSE inquiry was begun after a technician was crushed to death in 2006 in Barking, East London, when a pin-setting machine was mistakenly left plugged in.

The two-year investigation also concluded that staff must wear earmuffs to mask the noise of balls hitting pins.

An HSE spokesman said: 'The investigation revealed that the machinery used nationally in bowling alleys did not have adequate safety features.'

Susie Squire, of the TaxPayers' Alliance, said: 'The HSE has overreacted to a one-off tragedy by wasting a fortune of taxpayers' money producing a pointless, naval-gazing report.'

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1231962/Elf--safety-strikes-bowling-alley--250-000-study-tell-tenpin-bowls-dangerous.html#ixzz0YNOfxEHX

O Really?

 

The next time I'm out bowling (wherever the nearest bowling place is now), i'm going to run down the lane to knock the pins over by hand :P

In which case you'd probably get arrested for obstruction.

 

:rolleyes:

 

O Really?

 

The next time I'm out bowling (wherever the nearest bowling place is now), i'm going to run down the lane to knock the pins over by hand :P

Next time I go bowling, I'll where my Safety Helmet that says I'm #1. :wacky:

But I just wanted to see how it worked :bigcry:

What a stupid waste of money, it's dangerous to walk down the street because you could get run over by a car or stabbed by a random or OH NOES FALL DOWN AND HIT YOUR HEAD ON THE CONCRETE.

 

Next.