As a contractor I always carried both safety lockout tags and out of service tags, safety lockout tags were never left on the equipment if we left the site as it would be changed to an "out of service tag" that warned of a potential hazard of electrocution and or a fire on it or the equipment that was to be operated before repairs were made, in all cases the owner or care taker of the property would be made aware of the lock and as to why it was installed in writing that they sign a copy of that we kept as a record they were notified of the hazard.
At the steel mill where I work now we have our own locks that we use during our shift but if our shift ends we remove our locks and a continuity lock is placed on the disconnect or other like valves and such, this is placed by our shift supervisor until the next shift worker places his lock on the equipment, if you accidentally leave work and left your lock on without getting it changed to a continuity lock they can not just cut your lock off until you have been contacted, it also will include being wrote up and can cause you to be fired if the equipment that is shut down causes a major production loss because the next shift that finished the job couldn't re-energize the equipment and put it back in production, cutting the lock off of another employee is immediate dismissal, even if it is the boss if they didn't make personal contact with you, even if your wife answers the phone and says yes you are not at the plant, they have to speak to you personally before they can cut the lock if you went to the store without your cell phone then this production could end up being kept down till you make contact with them which could be for hours.
I have worked at other plants where no such rules existed and people got hurt, I have scars on my right arm from one such instance where back then we only had a tag out system and a production worker who couldn't read English saw his machine was running out of fiber and instead of contacting anyone just ripped the tag off and turned the fiber blender back on which tore open my right arm as I was trying to remove a jamb in the in-feed conveyor, unfortunately all I got was a settlement from Workman's comp of $1500.00 as we can't sue the company we work for here in Indiana, the worker who removed the tag was fired and all the maintenance guys pulled a blue Monday until the plant manger agreed to start a lockout tagout program with training for all production and maintenance workers and each new hire, this was at a time when there was no OSHA or other guidelines for safety as it was left up to liability's of the company to encourage company's to develop some kind of work place safety, but well here in Indiana since you could not sue your employer it kind of defeated this reasoning.
