The Regulations cover various means of communicating health and safety information. These include the use of illuminated signs, hand and acoustic signals, e.g. fire alarms, spoken communication and the marking of pipe work containing dangerous substances. These are in addition to traditional signboards such as prohibition and warning signs. Fire safety signs, i.e. signs for fire exits and fire-fighting equipment are also covered.

These signs should be used to make people aware of a nearby danger. For example, a flammable liquid store or a laboratory where radioactive substances are in use should have an appropriate warning sign near the entrance. These signs are required by the Health and Safety (Safety Signs and Signals) Regulations 1996 and in specific cases by the Dangerous Substances (Notification and Marking of Sites) Regulations 1990. Signs warning of a particular hazard consist of a black band in the shape of an equilateral triangle. The background within the band should be yellow with the pictogram indicating the type of hazard in black positioned centrally on the sign.

In a historic decision in 2018, the Los Angeles Police Commission voted unanimously to direct the Los Angeles Police Department to release relevant video of officer-involved shootings from body-worn, patrol car, bystander and other cameras within 45 days of the "critical incident." The decision made the LAPD the nation's first large police department to have a policy for the timely release of videos.

Safety signsand notices

None of the officers involved in Teran's shooting were wearing body cameras, although some backup officers had their body camera's rolling, but only captured the aftermath of the shooting, officials said. The officers who shot the 26-year-old environmental activist, claim he fired the first shot. Teran's family said an independent autopsy found he was shot 13 times and the bullets that hit him came from several different firearms. The case remains under investigation and none of the officers involved have been disciplined or charged.

The result is that rules regarding the public release of body-camera videos, how long they are stored, when they must be turned on or kept off vary from agency to agency.

This link is guidance from the HSE on the above legislation – Safety signs and signals. The Health and Safety Regulations 1996. Guidance on Regulations

These are signs used to provide additional information. In the Health and Safety (Safety Signs and Signals) Regulations 1996 these are confined to directional arrows. However BS 5499 : Part 4 : 2019 includes various text messages as well as arrows under the description of supplementary signs. To comply with the Regulations where a direction indication is needed the minimum requirement is for a supplementary sign in the form of an arrow. The supplementary text messages in the British Standard such as “Water as an extinguishing agent prohibited” will be acceptable under the regulations only if accompanied by an appropriate pictogram. This is entirely consistent with the philosophy of the British Standard. Supplementary signs consist of a square or rectangle in the appropriate colour with the pictogram or text in white and positioned centrally. The colour should be green where the information supplements a safe condition sign, red where it supplements a fire equipment sign or yellow to supplement a warning sign. There is a minor conflict between the British Standard and the regulations on the permitted colour of supplementary signs. BS 5499: Part 4: 2019 allows text to be in black on a white background or white on the appropriate colour. The colour alternative is the only option permitted in the Regulations. Thus the Regulations can be complied with by adhering to this option in the Standard.

Healthandsafety signscolours meaning

Despite the DOJ awarding millions of dollars in grants annually to law enforcement agencies to purchase body-cameras, there are no blanket federal policies governing their use other than those pertaining to federal law enforcement officers.

She suggested more money should be spent on recruiting higher quality police officer candidates than on body cameras. She said many police agencies have lowered the standards for recruits because there are fewer people going into the profession.

"Quite frankly, they thought law enforcement wasn't going to want them," Brantner Smith said. "Now that we've had them for years, what we're really seeing is body-worn cameras save the reputations of police officers and do provide a level of transparency."

The Regulations apply to all places and activities where people are employed, but exclude signs and labels used in connection with the supply of substances, products and equipment or the transport of dangerous goods.

In 2019, the New York Police Department, the nation's largest law enforcement agency, released its first policy on the public release of body camera footage of critical incidents, requiring them to be made public within 30 days of the episode.

The visible areas of these signs are manufactured from photoluminescent materials. These materials contain chemicals that are able to absorb and store energy from daylight or artificial lighting. When the source of energy is removed the chemicals are able to release the energy in the form of light. Several companies produce photoluminescent signs with pictograms complying with these regulations although the colours may not exactly match the specifications within the regulations. The properties of these signs make them useful to supplement normal signs in some situations. For example, they perform well as signs under the reduced light levels provided by emergency escape lighting operating on failure of the normal supply. There is no objection to the use of this material to supplement emergency lighting, but it is not acceptable to use it as an alternative to emergency lighting. This type of material is often used in strips at low level to highlight the contours of escape routes. The same material also finds a use in wayfinding systems.

Stoughton was a key prosecution expert witness in two recent high-profile trials of police officers that hinged on body-camera evidence: Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, who was convicted for the murder of George Floyd, and former Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, police officer Kim Potter, who was convicted of manslaughter in death of Daunte Wright.

These signs are used to mark the location of fire fighting equipment and fire alarm activation points. However, where possible, fire equipment should be positioned where it is clearly visible. Red to be used as the identifying colour for fire fighting equipment. If the equipment itself is red this will satisfy the requirement. Where it is not red then highlighting the position of fire fighting equipment by colouring background behind the equipment red may be enough to comply.

They require employers to provide specific safety signs whenever there is a risk that has not been avoided or controlled by other means, e.g. engineering controls and safe systems of work. Where a safety sign would not help to reduce that risk, or where the risk is not significant, there is no need to provide a sign. The regulations, where necessary, require the use of road traffic signs within workplaces to regulate road traffic and also require employers to maintain the safety signs which are provided by them, explain unfamiliar signs to their employees and tell them what they need to do when they see a safety sign.

These signs should be used to indicate escape routes, emergency exits, first aid equipment, emergency showers and the like. Safe condition signs consist of a green rectangle or square with the pictogram or text in white positioned centrally. In the same way as for mandatory signs some UK fire safety signs in this category are not required by the Health and Safety (Safety Signs and Signals) Regulations 1996. For example “PUSH BAR TO OPEN” is not required to comply and there is no pictogram with that meaning. Such signs are still needed for compliance with other UK legislation.

Photoluminescent systems should be installed in compliance with the Code of Practice for the installation in Premises of Emergency Way-finding Guidance Systems, Produced from Photoluminescent Materials, Safety Signs and Markers. This Code is published by the Photoluminescent Safety Products Association.

These signs should he used to indicate actions that must be carried out in order to comply with statutory requirements. For example self-closing fire doors that must be kept closed to comply with the fire risk assessment should be labeled with “FIRE DOOR KEEP SHUT” signs. An area of a construction site where hard hats should be worn should also have appropriate signs at the entry points.

As the result of this flexibility there are at least two exit signs available in the UK and there could be more throughout the EC. Because of this the EC directive 92/58 has failed in its principle aim to have common standard throughout the member states. However a new European standard has been proposed and ISO 7010 is very likely to be fast tracked to become Pr EN 7010. This means that it will be a “European Normative” and will be best practice guidance. As a result EU law will required it to be adopted by all member states without change. Consequently the Health and Safety (Safety Signs and Signals) Regulations 1996 will be amended and the above pictograms will be illegal. Pr EN 7010 will become the required standard and incidentally the exit sign will be identical to BS 5499: Part 4: Code of Practice for Escape Route Signing.

But Betsy Brantner Smith, a retired police sergeant and spokesperson for the nonprofit National Police Association, told ABC News that police officers, in general, "appreciate" having body-worn cameras.

"This is the sort of the hidden reality of the body worn camera system," Stoughton said. "The cameras themselves are not very expensive. What's expensive is the storage. We're talking about gigabytes and gigabytes and gigabytes, hundreds or thousands of hours of video, tens of thousands of hours of video for a large agency. And all of that data has to be backed up somewhere either on an in-house server, or, more likely, on a cloud-based system."

The regulations place a duty on employers to ensure that safety signs are provided in circumstances where the risk to the health and safety of employees, identified through the risk assessment requirement contained with the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1992 cannot be entirely, engineered or managed out of the workplace. It should be noted that the Regulations do not require safety signs to be used where there are no significant risks to the health and safety of employees. The issue which then requires to be resolved is whether it is necessary to indicate exits with signs. In arriving at a decision the fundamental issue which will underpin the process is whether the risk of injury or death to employees from a fire within a particular premises is deemed to be significant enough to warrant the provision of signs indicating fire exit routes and final exits. If it is deemed that the risk is not significant then there is no need to install the signs. Thus, for example, a small, single storey premises with one clearly visible exit should not require a fire exit sign because it would be obvious to staff that the door is their only means of access/egress and hence there should not be a significant risk to their health and safety from fire by not signing the door as an exit. However, those buildings with more complex internal layouts incorporating multiple exits, some of which may not be readily visible nor frequently used, or where large numbers of the public congregate, will require fire exit signs. They should be complete with directional arrows, if there is a significant risk of individuals not being able to find their way to a place of safety in the event of a fire.

"And there won't be because local jurisdictions push back against national standards for police professions from recruitment to training," Maria "Maki" Haberfeld, chair of the department of Law, Police Science and Criminal Justice Administration at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, told ABC News. "We have the most decentralized police system in the world, nobody comes even close to what we have. And this gives opportunities to police departments to do whatever they feel like doing."

In order to comply with the requirements of the Building Regulations, every doorway or other exit providing access to a means of escape, other than exits in ordinary use, should be provided with an exit sign. Installation of signs conforming to British Standard 5499: Part 4: 2013 will satisfy both the Building Regulations and the Health and Safety (Safety Signs and Signals Regulations) 1996. In general these Regulations will not require any changes where existing fire safety signs containing symbols comply with BS 5499: Part 4 : 2013 Fire safety signs, notices and graphic symbols. This is because the signs in BS 5499, although different in detail to those specified in the Regulations, follow the same basic pattern and are therefore considered to comply with the Regulations.

Stoughton said some small police departments with 50 officers or fewer have scrapped their body-camera programs in recent years because data storage costs were too expensive.

Signs indicating mandatory requirements consist of a blue circle with the pictogram or text in white positioned centrally.

Healthandsafety signsand meanings

"That can certainly undermine public trust because it can leave community members thinking, 'What is it police agency that you want to hide by not having body cameras?” Stoughton said.

Stoughton said both cases illustrate the problems with body cameras. In the Nichols incident, body cameras failed to curb the alleged behavior of the officers involved in his death. He said the Teran episode, undermines the public trust because none of the officers involved in the shooting had body cameras despite them being used by colleagues serving as support.

The regulations require that all signs should use graphic symbols or pictographs to convey their message but it does not prohibit the use of supplementary text. It indicates the intrinsic features required and some are indicated below:

"You can give the best training to the worst people and you're not going to have the desired results. So, we really have to start looking at elevating the standards rather than downgrading the standards," Haberfeld said.

However, despite tens of millions of dollars spent since then on body cameras and supporting storage software by law enforcement agencies across the nation, the technology has yet to become the panacea some politicians and activists once predicted, experts told ABC News.

Safety signs are divided into categories according to the type of message they are intended to convey. Each category is assigned a specific format and set of colours.

It should he noted that the Health and Safety (Safety Signs and Signals) Regulations 1996 do not apply to mandatory fire instructions but do apply to health and safety mandatory signs where pictograms are required. The minimum regulatory requirement is for the sign to include an appropriate pictogram, There are no pictograms for fire safety instruction signs and although mandatory in the UK through inclusion in the requirements of workplace fire assessments, such signs are not considered as health and safety signs within these Regulations. Thus the familiar white on blue fire safety mandatory signs using text only will remain in place and will not have to be changed.

The same general process outlined above is applicable to this section. Again it is assumed that because there is a possibility of a fire occurring in the premises then fire fighting equipment will be needed. Whether this equipment also requires to be identified by means of a sign will depend on the physical environment in which the fire risk assessment takes place. In other words the features of the workplace, the activities carried on there and any other circumstances deemed to be pertinent must be taken into account. For example, in a building where the internal layout is such that the extinguishers provided are clearly visible to employees there should not be a requirement to further indicate the position of the fire fighting equipment with a sign, or by colouring the background red.

Healthandsafety signsin the workplace

An excellent reference handbook for fire safety signs is produced by the Fire Protection Association. – Guide to Fire Safety Signs – FSB36 – ISBN 0 902167 87-1

"I would emphasize that what we have seen in the past seven or eight years is certainly not the end of the evolution of this technology," Stoughton said. "And we need to make sure that we're thinking about the policy environment and the regulatory environment, not just for what currently exists, but for what is coming down the pike."

Most police departments, large and small, are continuing to spend large portions of their budgets on equipping officers with body cameras. The two top police body camera manufacturers, Axon and Motorola Solutions, which both make other devices like stun guns and two-way radios, reported spikes in revenue in 2022, with Axon reporting an increase of $286 million, or a 31% jump from the previous year, and Motorola Solutions reporting overall sales of $2.4 billion, up 13% from the previous year.

In the aftermath Michael Brown's death in Missouri and the subsequent decision by the local prosecutor to clear the officer involved in the shooting, activists pushed for body cameras believing they would boost police accountability and transparency, Brantner Smith said.

But a report released in January by the National Institute of Justice, the research arm of the U.S. Department of Justice, concluded that while 80% of the agencies acquired body-worn cameras with those goals in mind, "research does not necessarily support the effectiveness of body worn cameras in achieving those desired outcomes."

He said body-cameras are now being created with the capacity to allow real-time facial recognition, live streaming, read license plates, detect when an officer is using profanity and can send out an alert if it senses an officer is incapacitated.

Seven states -- Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland, New Jersey, New Mexico and South Carolina -- mandate the statewide use of body-worn cameras by law enforcement officers.

"The history of policing is really marked by technological interventions that are offered as a way of solving deep-seated, long-running sociological problems," Stoughton said. "They fail to solve those problems because, to put it very simply, deep-seated societal problems are not susceptible to easy technological solutions."

Fire instruction notices, that is notices which list actions that occupants must carry out in the event of a fire are, by convention, written as white text on a blue background but not in the circular format. The colours are used to convey the mandatory nature of the instructions but because of the amount of text normally needed a rectangular format is used. The general mandatory sign of a white exclamation mark on a blue circle may be used in conjunction with a fire instructions notice.

These signs should he used to convey “Do Not” type commands for example, to indicate that smoking is not allowed or that, where a particular material reacts dangerously with water or water should not be used to extinguish a fire. In the workplace they should be used to reinforce instructions prohibiting dangerous activities. Such instructions, however, should also form part of the employees training. Signs prohibiting an activity consist of a circular red band and single diagonal cross bar descending from left to right at an angle of 45 degrees. The background should be white with the pictogram indicating the nature of the command in black.

Alternatively, in more complex building layouts, for example where it is not always possible to ensure that fire extinguishers are in the line of sight of employees, for example due to the nature of the work process or where hose reels are installed within cabinets or where fire fighting equipment is contained within recessed fire points then it would be pertinent to provide signs indicating the position of the equipment complete with directional arrows where applicable. It is important to highlight that the process by which a decision is reached regarding the necessity or otherwise of providing fire fighting equipment signs should be based on whether a significant risk exists as a consequence of the particular location of such equipment. If it is deemed that a significant risk does not exist then there is no requirement to provide the signs.

These Regulations brought into force the EC Safety Signs Directive 92/58/EEC on the provision and use of safety signs. The safety signs directive was adopted by all European Union member states on 24 June 1992, which recognised the need for all workplaces to have easily recognisable signs and symbols relating to safety matters and encourage the standardisation of safety signs throughout the member states of the European Union so that safety signs, wherever they are seen, have the same meaning. In this country, the Directive has been implemented through the Health and Safety (Safety Signs and Signals Regulations) 1996. These regulations apply to all places of work covered by the Health and Safety at work etc Act 1974.

"This whole idea of body worn cameras was really not properly empirically vetted," Haberfeld said. "Somebody said, 'Oh, it's great. We'll put the cameras on them and immediately change their behavior.'"

Where evacuation from buildings is needed, the Regulations require the fire alarm signal to be continuous. Fire alarms conforming to BS 5839 Part 1: 2017 Fire detection and alarm systems for buildings do not need changing, nor do other acceptable means such as manually operated sounders, e.g. rotary gongs or hand bells.

Stoughton said the primary goals of law enforcement agencies acquiring body-cameras have been to curb abusive behavior of officers; bolster transparency and build public trust; and improve the quality of evidence.

AmazonSafety Signs

"This is not just an existing technology, this is a technology that is continuing to evolve, and I don't know, and I don't think anyone could tell you with any clarity, what this is going to look like in 10 years," Stoughton said.

If, following the fire risk assessment, it is deemed necessary to provide any fire safety signs then they should comply with the Regulations which details the colour, maintenance regime and general advice associated with the provision and use of safety signs in general. It is also deemed fire safety signs which comply with BS 5499 and ISO 7010 meet the requirements of regulations. Fire safety signs deemed not to be acceptable are those which contain text only information therefore such signs should no longer be used. However in the case of existing premises where such text only signs are already in place and the risk assessment determines they are necessary, employers will have to replace them or supplement them with the appropriate pictograms.

The pictograms are as shown in the regulations and the completed sign must be in accordance with the appropriate colours.

"If you look back at the history of policing, it should have been very easy to identify that that's wildly and unrealistically optimistic," Seth Stoughton, a professor of criminology at the University of South Carolina School of Law and one of the nation's top experts on police body cameras, told ABC News.

Two recent police-involved civilian deaths are casting new scrutiny on the effectiveness of the technology: The Jan. 7 death of Tyre Nichols, who was allegedly beaten to death by Memphis police officers following a traffic stop, and the Jan. 18 fatal shooting by law enforcement officers of Manuel Esteban Paez Teran in Atlanta.

Safety signsPDF

In the Teran incident, officers from several agencies were conducting a "clearing operation" of a camp protesters established at the wooded construction site of an 85-acre police training facility dubbed "Cop City." During the operation, officers claimed the 26-year-old Teran refused to comply with verbal commands, drew a gun and shot a state trooper in the abdomen, prompting other officers to return fire, killing Teran, according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.

The 29-year-old Nichols was handcuffed and brutally beaten even though some of the officers involved in the incident had their body-cameras activated at the time and a stationary police security camera captured the alleged brutality, resulting in seven officers being fired, including five who were charged with murder.

The federal researchers analyzed 70 studies on police body-worn cameras and found "no consistent or statistically significant effects" between agencies that require them and those that do not, including fatal encounters with civilians.

Exit signs should be legible at all material times. In premises where emergency lighting has been considered necessary for means of escape purposes, such signs should be illuminated by the emergency lighting supply in the event of a failure of the normal lighting. Any of the following methods are considered suitable,

Following the 2014 fatal shooting of Black teenager Michael Brown by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, an episode that was not captured on video and prompted widespread protests, law enforcement agencies came under intense pressure to boost the use of body-worn cameras to increase police accountability.