Falling from height is not fate — it is organisational failure

Every day people fall from roofs. Average age: 41.

We call that a tragic accident. But it is not an accident. It is the end result of a decision taken weeks, months — sometimes years — earlier. In an office. By someone who was not standing on a roof at the time.

Organisations often build their safety management system around the certification scheme instead of around the actual safety question. The scheme dictates the set-up, when it should be the other way round. In our field — rooftop edge protection — the consequence is literally fatal.

Because here too, the lowest level dictates the set-up. A harness. A line. PPE — personal protective equipment. Level 4 in the statutory hierarchy. The very last resort, permitted only where it is demonstrable that collective protection is technically impossible.

But what do we see in practice? Building owners who find a guardrail too expensive. Architects who do not design the parapet high enough. Contractors who install anchor points because the client asks for them. And somewhere at the top of that chain: a director who never asked the only relevant question.

Is a guardrail technically possible here?

The answer is almost always: yes.

The Dutch Labour Inspectorate’s analysis of 371 serious roof-fall accidents (2020–2023) shows that 76% were directly linked to missing or inadequate rooftop edge protection. Not to the worker’s behaviour. Not to poor training. To the absence of a provision that could have been there.

The weakest link is not the roofer. The weakest link is the decision-maker.

If you own, manage or design a building: ask yourself that one question today. What is on your roof? And why?