There was no doubt about it. Thousands of people voted and four times as many thought the picture here was the most ill advised way of using ladders.

They were voting in the Ladder Association’s ‘Idiots on Ladders’ competition.

The Association says it was inundated with photographs of incredibly dangerous ways ladders are being used all round the world as it ran its ‘Idiots on Ladders’ competition for the second time. But this took the biscuit.

The organisation was sent the picture half way through December, just before the end of the competition, but it still received four times as many votes as any other entry – and all the others were pretty good at ably demonstrating why falls from heights are the single most common cause of serious injuries at work.

‘Idiots on Ladders’ runs alongside the Ladder Association’s Ladder Exchange scheme, which lets people and companies around the UK trade in rickety old ladders for discounts on new ones. Thousands of ladders have been exchanged since the initiative began in 2007.

The Ladder Association does not want people to stop using ladders but it does want them to use them safely. The ‘Idiots on Ladders’ campaign is intended to make people think about how they use ladders.