Wow, how'd you notice the hoof improvement, specifically?

At a construction site I worked on, crane signals were all over the place. We set up a required pre-shift review of the standard hand signals. That cut down on errors by about 80% based on our logs. Everyone had to confirm they understood before starting work.

Man, that part about not seeing what a fall does really sticks with me. I knew a guy who used to skip harness checks because it slowed him down. One day, he slipped off a roof but got lucky, just a broken arm. After that, he became the biggest safety nut on the crew, always yelling at new guys to clip in. It's like you said, the grumbling stops when people finally get why the rules are there.