Spark Master,

Cars are a perfect example of why common sense isn't, and how the creation of rules is as much based in politics as in the reality of increasing safety, and how personal responsibility and accountability is not enough when you are talking about taking risks with other people's lives.

IMHO the electrical code is much more closely tied to real safety then to just making some special interest money.

IMHO lineworkers should be grounding and testing. But an unexpectedly energized line is a substantial increase in risk to a lineworker. IMHO the increased risk of a backfed transformer is sufficient to make it reasonable to require some sort of interlock between the generator and the main in a residence.

This doesn't need to be a full up transfer switch; the interlocked breakers that I described are more than sufficient to bring the risk down to a reasonable level.

-Jon