Indeed we don't want to kill linemen working to repair power lines.
I am not a lineman, but I am an electrical engineer (in a former occupation anyhow) and I know a few things about what power crews do to safe guard themselves. Most times, they don't even touch the high voltage conductors if they don't have to. Instead, they use all manner of insulated grab poles and tools to move wires. There are also procedures that call for a line to be grounded first, before a crew person has to put hands on it (gloves or not.)
With all the generators that have been installed, to say nothing of the alternate energy, solar and wind systems being installed with several different kinds of utility-interactive and stand alone inverters, the days in which the power company could assume that a dead line really was and is dead are gone.
This is NOT to say that power customers don't have the continued responsibility to make sure that their equipment doesn't back feed the grid by any means, however.
'Just saying, the power companies are keenly aware of how much power more and more homeowners are generating on their own along with the implications for what it means for line crews.
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