12.03.2009

Swiss Death Wish

A reader, Paul Adorian of PAC, has sent us an absolutely classic Death Wish, although this one is almost certainly ‘staged’ for the promotion of Switzerland as a tourist destination.
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Setting a great example

What is amusing is the advert highlights Swiss stereotypes, including the myth of wanting everything to be just perfect. It features a man up the flagpole ironing the Swiss flag. Amazingly one can envisage this scenario being true in every aspect, as while most things are organised perfectly in the land of cheese, cow bells and goats, we have seen numerous examples of third world methods of working at height.

Without wishing to pontificate too much this does demonstrate the underlying point of our Death Wish series in that the use of safe efficient and appropriate access equipment is still far from automatic. If the designer of this advert had wanted to emphasise his point he would have put our man in a big truck mount or spider lift.

One mustn’t overlook of course that we can all take this too seriously the ad is a bit of fun, but it does highlight the point that those in powered access still have a massive job to do and thousands of new users to go after.