You'd be surprised at what people who are very familiar with a job that involves dangerous materials do.

We toss bricks around that can kill people if it hits them on the head with ease, and we're generally WAY up on a scaffolding with others underneath. Working with stone cutters, steel saws (don't know the proper English terms for these power tools) and the like in the most ridiculous, unsafe and retarded fashion. Because we know how they work, and are comfortable with them.

Of course, from time to time you have an unforeseen factor interfering (wind, something moving that you couldn't predict, carelessness). But most accidents stem from the small group that grows overconfident and forgets some very basic safety things.

For example, from a power tool that has an interchangable circular blade that can cut through steel, concrete, stones, anything really solid, you do NOT change the blade while it's in the plug. Working conditions mean that the thing is covered in dust, sometimes rain, and it can start because you twisting off the cap made it move, and the handle hit an object. And the safety button can get damaged to the point of not working over the years.

Sounds like a lot of coincidences, but all it takes is seeing it once and having your colleague run off, screaming while blood runs down his hands after he lost four fingers on the thing.

Also, reattach the cap properly. Nothing as scary as seeing that thing suddenly snap (guard will keep it away from you) off, see it fly off and land into the isolation a few feet of your coworker who knows he just escaped death.

Aaaaaah, that reminds me. We once had people working with them. Not our team, different company but at the same construction site. New guy had the ingenious idea to drive this thing around while extended.
Now, moron who can barely drive and is a good seven meters up in the air, combined with moving cranes (both tower cranes of different sizes, and a few digging cranes that have their paths regulated to that they can work fast and we don't get run over).
Guy runs into the path of a crane, hitting a wrong control, gets smashed over, falls in loose earth (which prevents him from dying), and then gets run over by a crane, leg under the caterpillar. The crunch was supposedly sickening (I was too far away when it happened), but god damn that scream still haunts my dreams.

****** deserved it though. Basic training, you do not drive that thing while they're up. Nowadays most have security installed that prevents that, but there's enough of the old models around still.

Jesus **** , dude. That's messed up. I didn't get any training whatsoever either, but I wasn't a complete moron. To stay safe with that thing you basically just need common sense. I'm not going to do **** I'm not supposed to, and I had no accidents happen to me. Okay I bent my middle finger on the right hand backwards a bit twice when catching bricks, but that's completely different. For us the worst thing that happened was that two guys damn near fell off the roof. Both caught a wooden plank on the roof at the last moment. The roof was covered in thin ice, and it was a sheet metal roof.

I've seen people fall off the roof before.

The thing is, we get people who are arrogant, and see people with work experience who move around and do dangerous things effortlessly, and they try to mimick it. Also, a lot of people drink. Now some people can hold their drink well, and others just don't, if all you see is a few empty bottles you don't know who drinks and who doesn't, so they assume we all do, and they do the same.

The amount of retardedness I've witnessed is beyond believe. I'm getting tempted to start a comp of short stories on them, as they are both amusing at times, a bit morbid, and definitely a proper warning to not **** around with power tools and construction in general.

I treat power tools with respect, because I know damn well that those things could **** my day up real quick. I'm pretty new to jobs like this, most I've done is construction on the house my family just bought, so I'm still prone to make mistakes though. However when I saw my more experienced coworkers do some crazy dangerous **** , all I could think was "aaaaaaight whatever I do, I should NOT do that because either I die or I kill someone. ".
Also, you should write stories about that. Construction stories can be pretty amazing, so I'd subscribe and read 'em. Seeing has how starting next year I'm going to be doing this kind of work a lot more, I could probably learn from the mistakes of others also when reading those stories.