Ordinary house roofing work (and, by extension, things like rooftop solar installations/maintenance) is terribly dangerous. Tons of deaths and serious injuries per year. Little attention on it at all, let alone political movement toward making it safer.
Isn't this partly because roofers rarely take the full "correct" range of safety precautions while working, because they would significantly slow down the work?
It probably also has to do with the fact that most of the work is small contractors, many without even a business license or insurance, or even just the homeowners themselves. Ironworkers deal with big structures where the financing demands large business entities and therefore usually unions, both of which are typically fanatical about worker safety.
Also because a lot of them are of the "hardhats are because we live in a nanny state" and then fall off a roof or fall backwards on the ladder, because they are fabulously un-self aware, DAD