Dumb and Dumber on YouTube

Submitted by heather on Fri, 11/14/2008 - 10:58.

Who doesn't love to laugh at a crazy homemade video on YouTube: a cat doing the jig, a sportscaster making an embarrasing blunder, a young guy.... driving his forklift backwards on two wheels??!!

That's right, an Australian 20-year-old thought it would be a hoot to drive his hoon forklift at top speed backwards with the rear wheels off the ground, performing burnouts, and crashing into a concrete pipe...

That was dumb. Deadly dumb.

He then proudly loaded the video onto YouTube... no, really.

That was dumber still.

Bosses watch YouTube, too

Matthew Garry Ward's idiotic, irresponsible video was viewed almost 250 times on YouTube - one of those times being his boss! He recognized Matt, confronted him and fired him.

The youth's consequences for workplace stupidity didn't stop there...

Investigation by the Australian group, WorkSafe Victoria, led to him being charged with failing to take reasonable care of his own safety at work.

The young man was convicted, ordered to pay $1,200 and do 50 hours of community work. He's even had his forklift licence cancelled.

Did he REALLY think it was cool to be a jackass on a serious piece of equipment?! (Forklifts have one of the highest levels of accidents of all workplace equipment; a 16-year-old in Alberta, Canada, was crushed to death goofing around on his buddy's forklift at work a few months ago, for example.)

Why is taking the risk of losing one's arm, leg, life.. or injuring/killing someone else, considered so hilarious by some people?

Would YOU have watched Matt's smash-'em-up forklift video and had a laugh?

P.S. No, that photo is not of Matt-the-forklift-maniac; it is a campaign poster done by WorkSafe Victoria, Australia - showing a guy the same age as Matt... and he's not laughing.

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A great post, thanks. I'm

Submitted by Michael Birt on Sun, 11/16/2008 - 19:24.
A great post, thanks. I'm glad you made the connection between the current young workers campaign and this prosecution. The reasearch shows that young people don't 'get it' in terms of traditional safety messages hence the graphic nature of the poster. The result of this case is that it received coverage right across Victoria (metro and country) and was also picked up in other states, blogs, newspapers etc around the world. The really good thing is that the ordinary puinters who comment on newspaper stories were almost unanimous in saying 'this is not cool'. It's sites like this where people touched by safety disasters speak out about who's really affected that we can minimise that sort of thing happening. Cheers m./

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