Homer’s poster prevents personal injury accidents at work 

If you were confronted with a poster of Homer Simpson putting Weapons Grade Death Syrup on a pile of pancakes would it make you think twice about your hazardous substances handling? Safety experts hope so as they have used Matt Groening's famous characters as the central theme of a set of training material warning of the dangers of personal injury accidents in all sorts of work environments.

There is a great set of posters - My personal favourite is Simpsons safety posterSafety Responsibility - where Waylon Smithers, from the nuclear plant, is conducting safety training. Homer is, predictably, asleep and Karl and Lenny are playing cat's cradle. Obviously no-one is going to learn about appropriate personal protective equipment (PPE) from this safety meeting.

It is said by the firm marketing the products that The SimpsonsTM is the number one television show in the world, with over 13 billion episodes watched annually. They suggest it has been translated into over 45 languages, is shown in over 150 countries and is a global phenomenon to be tapped into in order to "power up your safety awareness and training programmes."

They feel that employers would be able to get their message across to employees because the "strong graphics" allow the pictures to tell a story and the instantly recognisable characters will break through cultural and language barriers. The aim of the The SimpsonsTM safety progamme products is to reach the most at-risk demographic – young, inexperienced employees.

Hmm. I'm not sure whether it's going to work. The cartoons are so stylised that this particular personal injury pundit feels the posters alone will be looked at as just another incidence of Homer being dense and how his lack of safety awareness is treatable as funny. It could be argued that mixing such strong comedy characters with potentially life threatening issues is risky to say the least; that their effectiveness at preventing personal injury accidents at work and their subsequent no win no fee compensation claims is questionable.

Of course, merely by implementing some of the training materials into a company's safety training programme would be seen as one step towards a safer working environment and could prevent an employee from suggesting they did not have adequate training to prevent their accident at work.

I can here it now in court:

Judge – Sir, the personal injury accident victim says he did not receive proper training. How do you plead?

Employer – Not guilty, your honour. We showed explicit images of an overweight, yellow man driving a forklift truck, while eating doughnuts, as four large crates toppled dangerously towards his work colleagues. We were sure this was message enough to prevent a work accident.

Ok, so I'm simplifying the issue; any tool implemented as means of getting the safety message across is commendable and a requisite of employers... but, The SimpsonsTM? - I'm not convinced. Still, as a set of images they are great and if you're a fan of Marge, Homer, Bart, et al, then you are going to think they are just the job. Preventing personal injury accidents has never been more amusing.

Can I claim?