The article perfectly reflects my experience (building/construction sites). The norms and procedures - even if followed to the letter[1] as much as possible -

The article perfectly reflects my experience (building/construction sites). The norms and procedures - even if followed to the letter[1] as much as possible - are not enough to avoid serious accidents, and as a matter of fact they might even be the source of problems[2]. What really counts in my experience is professionality, communication between workers and management, continuous attention and "common sense" (something that is not very common, unfortunately). [1] In theory safety in the design is one of the main points of the Law, but in practice it is never or very rarely properly implemented. In theory a safety engineer should have the powers, besides advising, to alter the design and construction method proposing alternate, safer designs or construction methods, in practice these end up as being slower or much costlier and they are discarded. [2] As an example relatively recent norms make obligatory to use a safety harness hooked to the basket of lifting platforms. This is a good thing, as it prevents the worker in the basket to fall out of it if there is a sudden bump when the platform moves or however the arm gets hit by something, BUT, on the other hand, if for any reason the platform collapses or tips over, the worker secured to the basket by the harness is more likely to be more severely injured.