Tag: transportation

Workplace Safety – Accident/Incident/Near Miss Investigation

One of the best ways to avoid further accidents is to understand how an accident occurred and how to avoid that type of accident in the future. The accident investigation is a tool. The goal is not to lay blame. The goal in an accident investigation is to:

  • Satisfy legal requirements (National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health? NIOSH, and Occupational Safety and Health Administration?OSHA)
  • Find out what happened and determine immediate and underlying or root causes.
  • Rethink the safety hazard.
  • Introduce ways to prevent a reoccurrence
  • Establish training needs.
  • An accident, a near miss and an incident should all be investigated.
  • Accident investigations are a tool for uncovering hazards that either were missed earlier or require new controls (policies, procedures or personal protective equipment).
  • Near-miss reporting and investigation identify and control safety or health hazards before they cause a more serious incident.
  • Incident investigations should focus on prevention.

ACCIDENT — an undesired event or sequence of events causing injury, ill-health or property damage.

NEAR MISS — near misses describe incidents where, given a slight shift in time or distance, injury, ill-health or damage easily could have occurred, but didn’t.

INCIDENT — an incident is an unplanned, undesired event that hinders completion of a task and may cause injury or other damage.

via Workplace Safety Toolkit.

Spot the Tot -Prevent “Backover” Tragedies

Preventing “Backover” or “frontover” tragedies

Danger can come from any direction, and parents must be aware of the risk of “backover” or “frontover” incidents. Many of these preventable injuries and deaths occur in driveways or parking lots when drivers are unaware children are near vehicles. Tragically, these drivers are often family members or friends of the injured child.

Parents, caregivers, drivers, and kids can all do their part to make sure that children do not share the same space as vehicles.

  • Walk all the way around your parked vehicle to check for children – or anything that can attract a child like pets or toys – under or behind your vehicle before getting in and starting the engine.
  • Accompany young children when they get in and out of a vehicle.
  • Identify and use safe play areas for children away from parked or moving vehicles. Block driveways so cars cannot enter and exit.
  • Designate a safe spot within a driver’s sight for children to wait when nearby vehicles are about to move.
  • Firmly hold the hand of each child when walking near moving vehicles and when in driveways, in parking lots or on sidewalks.

via Spot the Tot.

Motorcycle Safety: Helmets Save Lives

Preventing serious injuries and deaths from motorcycle crashes is a major and growing public health concern.

Consider that:

  • Motorcycle crashes killed 5,290 people in 2008.
  • The number of motorcycle-related deaths increased every year between 1997 and 2008.
  • Motorcycle crash-related injuries and deaths totaled $12 billion in one year, in medical care costs and productivity losses.
  • Helmets are estimated to prevent 37 percent of fatal motorcycle injuries for motorcycle riders (operators) and 41 percent of fatal injuries for motorcycle passengers.

via CDC Features – Motorcycle Safety: Helmets Save Lives.

Driving is a Privilege not a Right

Driving is a privilege. A driver’s license gives you a certain level of freedom, but it also gives you an enormous amount of responsibility. When behind the wheel this responsibility comes in many forms:

•       Wearing safety belt

•       Driving sober

•       Focusing on the road

•       Driving defensively

A lot of responsibility comes with a driver’s license. You have to drive safely, obey the traffic laws, and respect the rights of other drivers. Not only should you concentrate on your own driving, you should also be well aware of the other vehicles around you. Driving safely also includes how and where you park your car. Passengers in your car put their safety in your hands and expect you to drive safe as well.