Safety Shoes - a Quick Overview

What do you imagine when you think of safety shoes? Big ugly bovver boots? Smelly men in plaid shirts? Well not all safety shoes need to be like that.

Have a look at what's available on the market these days. Big names like Doctor Martens and Grinders now also bring you a range of attractive, alternative safety footwear for the person who needs to be safe but also free to chose their style and colour for themselves.

You might see clogs in safety footwear sections. How funky are these? Slip on slip off but you won't slip over or have your foot crushed, because the steel toe cap reinforces and protects your foot, and the optional reinforced sole avoids pieces of glass, screws or nails or any other sharp instrument from piercing your foot and causing you injury. Lets face it, nobody wants to be hurt, and a tetanus jab is never the most pleasant afternoon at the surgery is it?

What else have we seen? Well, if you look hard enough you will see trainers for safety shoes. Trainers I hear you ask? What is that all about? Well they are kind of like transformers, safety shoes in disguise! From the outside you are just a normal guy wearing a pair of fairly cool trainers or sneakers (depending on which side of the Atlantic you are on). But on the inside you are safe in the knowledge you are surrounded by steel, reinforced plastic and shock protection, and confident to wander into any sort of dangerous situation and be within health and safety legislation (and personal common sense) boundaries.

Ah hah, we mentioned health and safety. A good point to discuss this most loathed of topics. Health and safety is everywhere, and if you work in a hazardous environment you will not only be recommended to wear safety shoes, but actually obliged. Not wearing these shoes could infringe your company's insurance policy and put you in a very compromising position when it comes to any accidents at work. So whether you like them or not, safety shoes are here to stay. At least you have some choice in selection and more up to date style, and aren't obliged to look like a punk or a skinhead in your size 11 DM's!

But what about the executive? The foreman? The guy who has to make his footwear work for him both on the construction site and in the high level meeting and presentation? What's the solution? To carry two pairs of shoes? Yes, in the past this probably was the answer, but now there are a fabulous range of 'smart' shoes available in safety shoes, allowing the boss to comply with health and safety legislation without having to expose his holey socks every time he leaves the car!

So we see that safety shoes are moving on. Lets hope we are too and that we see less admissions to A&ampE for perfectly preventable foot accidents because safety shoes weren't worn.