I thought my husband was reading a bulb catalogue, and since we have no garden in London I was puzzled when he called out: ‘I’m sending off for this one for you.’
I thought my husband was reading a bulb catalogue, and since we have no garden in London I was puzzled when he called out: ‘I’m sending off for this one for you.’
It turned out that he was reading a catalogue from Seton’s (‘Solutions for a safe, secure workplace’), and he wanted to get a sign for the kitchen door: ‘Danger: Explosive atmosphere’. Very droll.
What struck me was the obscurity of the image on the yellow triangle above the legend. It looked to me like a sunrise behind a mountain. Far more like an explosion was the picture that was meant to go with a hazard warning about lasers. Quite what one is meant to do when lasers are flashing about, I don’t know, any more than one can do much about the sign: ‘Danger: Falling objects’.
Of course, as Seton’s points out, ‘The Health & Safety (Safety Signs and Signals) Regulations 1996 state that Hazard Signs must be displayed to warn people to be careful or to take precautions where hazards exist.’ But at £11.65 for a self-adhesive vinyl sign 12 inches by ten, there’s gold in them there hazards.
They are all around us, even if we scarcely notice them any more. Although the words underneath may make things clear (if one understands English), the semiology of the images themselves is by no means clear to me. I don’t see the symbolism that distinguishes between biological hazards and radioactive hazards.
A representation of a snowflake, which on the road would warn of snow, refers in the workplace to a danger of low temperatures. There’s all the difference between the level of risk of a snowball and that of liquid nitrogen.
One sign that baffled me looked like a warning against rolling pins. It is meant to draw attention to dangerous compressed gases. The overhead hazard signs resembles a attack by a mad axeman.
I am thinking of sending off for a sign to go on the drinks table next to my husband’s chair: a skull and crossbones and the legend: ‘Danger: Harmful fumes’.
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