The noncompliance of safe practices before breaking ground should carry a maximum sentence, argues Craig Simmonds who puts a case for the use of ground probing radar to to locate underground services before excavation. Trusting to luck is no longer an option for workers excavating the ground. Ignorance can not be used as an excuse for striking cables or pipes, according to the Health and Safety Executive's guidance to construction regulations. Each employer, operative and even service owner must take stock therefore and reconsider the practice of breaking ground before the Law Commission's code on involuntary manslaughter, which includes a recommendation for an offence of corporate killing, is made law.
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