While on a trip to England, some of my relatives invited me to a birthday party. It was for a 12 year old nephew who has always had a fascination for construction Equipment. You should have seen his eyes when the lowboy pulled up and the JCB was unloaded. No one knew why it was there. The parents had arranged for the appearance and he was allowed to try his hand at digging a hole. (sorry no driving) You could see the thrill for this kid. I spoke with the driver and he explained that he has a couple birthdays each weekend and tends to collect at least 200 dollars. Time begins when the truck arrives. Parents sign a waiver. A great idea for idle time.
That's really interesting, I'll bet that boy will remember that birthday for a while. Phil
i do have a question about this release that is signed? How protected are you? and have you had any lawyer type parents read your release in full? (they'd know if you had something you needed to work on for protection) I'm curious: say my kid sprang his ankle in/on your machine would you be liable or partially liable? I guess these days we should be able to provide a dream or fun for us all... been my limitied experience that some joker will exploit someones good intentions with evil low down stuff over the opportunity to make a point. Something to consider is to make your release totally and unquestionably fool proof without making people scared they considered you. Finding that little balance is well worth it.
waivers Hi Euclid, this is the sort of adventures people with machines get up to in the UK, You might of seen these pics before ... but what to do with your hoe when there is not a lot of work about ? And how many people you can get into a backhoe cab. These pics are taken from a rental firms new theme park called diggerland.The local council tryed to stop this, as it dont have proper planning permission, and there has allready been a accident on the park last year when a eight yr old broke her leg, his insurance costs must be sky high.
the release is pretty much worthless, because the parents will argue gross negligence by allowing a little kid to operate the machinery. there is also a theme park like that in Steamboat Colorado. Get to operate CAT 312/320, Bobcat and some kind of dozer. I wonder how it's doing.
Life is full of risk I have no idea about the legalities as I am not a lawyer, if I was I wouldn't be on an equipment forum, but....I have to say Life is full of risk. Informed Risk. Risk and Safety must be explained and taken very seriously. I believe that if all due care is taken with the Parents Present and there is an injury, the equipment company should pay medical or have insurance that will cover reasonable Medical expenses. Refering back to what I wrote before, That Boy will remember his birthday for the rest of his life. Someone made him very happy !!
I'm in college now and I've have to take several law course including business law. I've spent the past 22 years in and around the US Navy in aviation so this is a total change in my life. I've looked at things differently after my law classes because of the hidden things in all contracts. I'm actually a low key down to earth country boy and I agree 100% that little boy will remember that b-day for a very long time. It is a shame we live in a world where we've become so rigid to allow ourselves to enjoy life. So my points weren't to be considered I was a blowhard; I guess I wanted to express concern over motives of some people chasing the ambulances and the JG Wentworth commercials on T.V.
Take a look at this web site, its our health an safety executive, the HSE, its goverment run, but they are running a myth campaign, about all these silly can's and can't do's, you will get the idea of where they are coming from, but this country is full of what we call Job's worth," more than my jobs worth mate so cant do that" :Banghead type, the goverment is running a campaign to say lets look at common sense about safety, and to say that these rules that stopped people doing some things were not law, but there are those that make out it is law, they are also trying to play out most of these lawyers who are advertising this no win no fee, got to blame some one style of law, as its costing the country millions in countless silly claims that do not go anywhere in courts, and its the tax payer that pays for this, you see the average person in the UK, has insurance for car, house and house contents, but not many have public liability insurance. Take your man with his digger, he, more than likely has public liability insurance, and if some one signs a statement to the effect that waivers this who are the parents going to sue if something goes wrong, you cant get blood out of a stone. Anyways here is the link, http://www.hse.gov.uk/myth/index.htm Martyn
Personally I blame the judges for not showing common sense. Example A woman trips over a broken paving slab in the street. Judge finds council guilty of not maintaining footpaths. Does he A award £30,000 ( payable out of council insurance, that we all pay for through council tax )compensation to the woman for her twisted knee and embarressment, or B award £800 compensation, BUT find the woman 50% to blame, as she was not paying attention to where she was going, now £400, minus 50% of court costs as if she had not been so hell bent on getting MONEY she would have accepted the £100 the council first offered out of court. Woman walks away with a couple of £ and everybody else says, Sod going to court it aint worth it. End of NO WIN, NO FEE. O for a sane world :stirthepot
Put yourself in the position of a judge: Seriously and to make it fair think of a subject you know very little about or something you have no clue in, then have two sides explain a situation to you and then you make a decision about the outcome. I mean you made a good point that judges should use better judgement, in all reality it is the lawyers who are feeding the information to the judge and then they have to make a educated decision on what was given to them. I'm sure in many cases they review current events and I'm not sure if that is a good thing or not. But in a nut shell I'm sure it would be very difficult to make certain decisions for the good of the people because you can't please everyone. I made mention of this because of my extensive law classes recently and it is a weird deal when I had to make a decision and to allow 2 of my classmates argue points of the discussion. Needless to say even though it was a class I wasn't totally comfortable with the points but I made a decision in what I thought was in the best interest of the discussion.
I understand where you are coming from, and no way would I like to be in the judges position. What I was trying to show was the common sense over compensation payments. £ 30,000 for a slight injury that most of us got worse falling out of trees as kids and embarressment :beatsme OR, what I consider showing common sense, apportion a part of the blame, and a small bit of cash. :IMO :thumbsup
I think it is a pretty cool idea. I know that when kids and even grownups come over to my place and see my backhoe, they all want to dig something. I always have a dirt pile sompwhere, so depending on their age, I'll let them drive it, or help them drive it to the dirt pile. Positiong it so they can so some digging and let them have fun. I stay right next to them, and I've had kids from 5years old to adults in their 60's dig into a dirt pile without any issues. With the outriggers and bucket down, it's very stable. They are all go slow and have allot of fun. I was wondering about what they dig when he shows up to the parties, and how does the owner of the tractor know it's safe t dig? Eddie
The upgraded pony ride?
It is quite a thrill operating for the first time! i nearly wet myself when i first operated a payloader. In this country, would have to put out a tender for a machine, electricity (when we have it), water, land, operator/demonstrator and a liquidator just in case. youd then have to find an auctioneer, bank and form a stokvel to pay for the various business enders! Ha ha. (only kidding) Sorry, quickly, where is PowerPlus from?