Anyone who has ever had to clean or replace a roof gutter will know exactly how dangerous a roof gutter can be. When you are standing up there on your tip toes trying reach in and clear whatever is casing the blockage, you are also silently praying that roof gutter is not going to claim another victim.
The number of people all around the world who have been seriously hurt or nearly killed (there have been numerous fatalities as well) while working on a roof gutter begs belief. The reason is quite simple and obvious, yet no clever man or woman has come up with any really viable option which makes the roof gutter less of a building menace.
The roof gutter is a menace because while you are stuck cleaning or replacing the roof gutter, you are so open to disaster, both your hands are probably engaged in the activity so there is no support coming in that form, you are invariably pretty high up so the wind is a very real threat to your survival and then there is the idiot factor as well.
The idiot factor is, while being the most avoidable form of roof gutter accident, by far the most common and likely to be the one that kills the poor roof gutter guy. This idiot factor is based around the principle that people are stupid and do not often look around them. People will walk onto building site or through an area where there is clearly building going on, and they will stroll through as if they were walking in the park, with absolutely no risk being posed in any shape or form. They will not see the ladders going up the walls and they definitely will not see the poor sod who is stuck up clear trying to clear a roof gutter so that there merry walker does not get wet when it rains. One especially feels for the gutter men in places where it rains a lot because while this is where you would people to be aware, they are not.