location scouting, Risk assesment and Health and safety

Today's location scouting seminar made me realise that there is so much more to location scouting that finding a place that looks the part (thanks to health and safety). many aspects of a location have to be pre considered, eg weather conditions, light conditions, traffic conditions, permission to use, potential health hazards such as slippy floors, structural integrity of set, trip hazards and the list goes on.

my personal opinion on health and safety legislation is that the worlds gone mad. health and safety is the system we put in place to protect ourselves from the American suing culture we seem to be slowly adopting. almost one in five television adverts are about suing people because u were not looking where you were going or because you went up a ladder that you knew was the wrong type and fell off of it. its a joke. personal feelings aside ill do my best to fill out detailed risk assessment forms when planning a shoot.