Winter storms create a variety of hazards and can have lingering impacts on everyday tasks and work activities. According to the National Weather Service, about 70 percent of injuries during winter storms result from vehicle accidents, and about 25 percent of injuries result from being caught out in the storm. Learning about how to prepare for a winter storm and avoid hazards when one occurs will help keep you safe during the winter season.

This is from the new OSHA Winter Storm site.  The site has four (4) main sections to help employers learn about dealing with winter storms. These sections are:

• Introduction
• Preparedness
• Response/Recovery
• Additional Resources

With winter in its full glory this information will be useful to anyone who has to deal with this season.

Florida and Hawaii can disregard this posting.  Aren’t you lucky and warm.

Will Workers Compensation injuries be on the increase, merely because we have an aging workforce?

We hear it constantly – the aging workforce – and for some of us that are of the baby boomer generation we don’t like hearing it!  We can’t stop the aging process, but we do actually have some control over the WC injuries that can result.

Whether you work at a desk, in commercial construction, or in manufacturing, it’s unfortunate but true that as you age your body parts just get worn out!  Years of typing can cause repetitive motion issues; years of lifting or digging trenches can cause repetitive traumas, as well as knee, back, and shoulder issues.   But it comes down to the fact that even though just the aging process may weaken the body part, if the “final straw” happens on the job, it’s a workers’ comp claim.

It is evident that the baby boomer generation is willing to learn new techniques, take care of us both physically and mentally, and they don’t want to give in to the idea of getting older so they can’t do certain tasks.  They are highly motivated to keep going, but without pain.

So, what can an employer do to help the aging workforce not get injured?  First of all observe how tasks are performed and be open to having them done a different way to alleviate stress on certain body parts.  Enlist assistance with this evaluation from those who actually do the job and have done the job for many, many years.

For repetitive motion issues, it can merely be an ergonomics issue.  Still even in 2010 we should be looking at how an individual’s workstation is set up and if they have the proper tools.   From a construction standpoint it can be holding training sessions regularly on proper lifting techniques, or merely telling your employees it’s okay to ask for assistance when lifting items of a certain weight – in fact encourage or insist they ask for help!

By providing your employees with training on correct body mechanics, healthy eating habits, support in joining a gym, more employees may come to realize that they do have control over their personal discomfort and/or pain and see that they can prevent and alleviate the physical stresses or work and personal life!

To take it a step it a step further let’s look at the worker compensation cost to a company.  To get a more accurate figure the company should  multiplying the number of injuries by the average costs of such injuries. Direct average costs for medical care were drawn from the National Council on Compensation Insurance Ultimate Reports. Lifetime medical costs for deaths were valued at $17,226; for Permanent Total at $113,372; for Permanent Partial at $15,342; for Temporary Total and Partial at $2,782; and for no work loss at $294. The average cost per hour is estimated to be abut $30 per hour worked for injuries.  The medical expenses were drawn from workers’ compensation accounts and did not require adjustment for charges versus payments since workers’ compensation paid virtually 100 percent of medical bills that is, very few co-payments or deductibles were charged to clients.

The bottom line is as we get older we have more incidents and  it takes us longer to heal.  The cost of healthcare continues to rise.  Therefore, companies can expect a rise in worker compensation cost which goes directly to the bottom line.  For the safety professional, this present a greater challenge to reduce incidents and injuries in the workplace.

Has this ever happened to you?  Picture yourself sitting in front of your TV watching your favorite show or maybe a sporting event, and the phone rings.  You pick up the phone and start talking to your good friend while watching the TV.  You talk for about 15 minutes, then hang up and look at the TV and realize the score of the event has changed and you don’t know what happened, or the show has ended and you don’t remember what happened.

If your answer is yes, you have just experience inattention blindness.  Inattention blindness is the brain’s inability to process more than 1 task or function at a time.  You concentrated on your conversation, and you did not really see the TV.  Regardless of what you might think, your brain cannot multitask.  It can switch back and forth between tasks, but when it does you lose focus on the first task.  Where are we going with this?

This is one of the main reasons why distracted driving has become the 2^nd leading cause of motor vehicle collisions in the past 5 years.  Cell phone use (hands free or holding a cell phone), eating/drinking, playing a CD or adjusting the radio, grooming, reading a map or anything else that takes your focus off the task of driving is growing as the main cause of motor vehicle incidents.

Vision is the most important sense we use when we drive. Driving distracted narrows our vision by as much as 50%.

There are many collisions that investigators have found the driver never saw the other half of the collision.

In addition to inattention blindness, studies have shown that drivers talking on cell phones (hand free or hand held) have a reduced reaction time.  Similar to those who blood alcohol rate is 0.08.

With reduced vision and reduced reaction time, sooner or later you will experience a motor vehicle collision.

Remember driving is most dangerous thing you do every day of your life.   Think of someone important to you.  Do you think they might want to see you today or you might want to see them.

Drive Safely for you and everyone around you.

Violence in the workplace represents one of the most challenging security and personnel safety problems that organizations can face today. To help companies and organizations respond to and become better prepared for such challenges, two American National Standards Institute (ANSI) members and accredited standards developers, ASIS International and the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), have joined forces to release an American National Standard (ANS) aimed at preventing violence in the workplace.

The standard establishes policies, processes, and protocols that organizations can adopt to identify and prevent threatening behavior and violence affecting the workplace, and to better address and resolve threats and violence that have occurred. The standard also describes the implementation of a workplace violence prevention and intervention program, as well as protocols for effective incident management and resolution. The standard‘s recommendations are broad in order to provide organizations the flexibility needed to implement prevention and intervention strategies appropriate for their workplace.

Have you every heard of Safety Toolbox Talks?

If you are part of the safety team for your company or organization, this is a free safety resource exchange for safety professional.  The site give you all kinds of information and it is FREE!

From their website, “Safety Toolbox Talks was started in 2007 as a portal for safety professionals to share and exchange free safety topic resources . . . specifically Toolbox Topics, Toolbox Talks and other free safety resources. If you’re like so many companies these days, the daily safety meeting has proven very effective in reminding employees about the importance of safety in their daily tasks.”

Safety Toolbox Talks offers a wide  variety of topic which include:

• toolbox talks
• home safety
• driver safety
• safety videos
• safety news
• OSHA quick takes
• and much more.

With the safety budget shrinking, we need a place to get information and resources with as little cost as possible.  So check out Safetytoolboxtalks.com.  I think you will find it helpful and informative.

What do think NETS is?  A tennis game, Part of the NBA, a new reality show?  Not really, NETS stands for Network of Employers for Traffic Safety.  So, have you ever heard of NETS?  Probably not.

Do you have any employees who drive for your business or organization?   Maybe you have some employees who drive to and from work.  NETS is dedicated to improving the health and safety of employees, their families and the community by preventing traffic crashes that occur both on- and off-the-job.  Why should we be so concerned about employees who drive?  Because Motor Vehicle Collisions are the #1 cause of employee/worker death and injury in the US.  Nothing is even close. It is also the most costly injury to any company/organization according to the National Safety Council”s Injury and Facts publication.

The Board members of NETS include:

Abbott

AmeriFleet Transportation

Chubb Group of Insurance Companies

The Coca-Cola Company

Johnson & Johnson

Liberty Mutual Insurance Group

Monsanto

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA)

National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)

Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company

UPS

In just over a month NETS will be sponsoring National Drive Safely Work Week, October 3-7.

Focus 360° – Getting there safely is everyone’s responsibility.

The 2011 campaign is focused on the dangers of distracted driving— but not just from the position of the driver. The new materials also help consider the roles and responsibilities of being a safe passenger, pedestrian and cyclist in preventing distracted driving-related incidents. If you want more information, go to NETS website.

If your organization has hazardous materials in the workplace, there is a site you might want to bookmark and become familiar with.   The Department of Health and Human Services has as part of it’s webpage a report on carcinogens.   The report identifies agents, substances, mixtures, and exposure circumstances that are known or reasonably anticipated to cause cancer in humans.   Since the Hazard Communication standard  is one of the most often sited parts of OSHA, this site may help you inform your employees about carcinogenic substances you have in your workplace.

On June 10 added eight substances, including the industrial chemical formaldehyde, to its Report on Carcinogens.  The report identifies chemicals and biological agents that may cause cancer in humans. According to HHS, research shows high exposure to formaldehyde increases the risk for certain types of cancer, such as nasopharyngeal, sinonasal and myeloid leukemia.  Formaldehyde is used to make resins for household items, as a preservative in medical laboratories and in consumer goods such as hair straightening products. In fact, after receiving complaints from hair stylists, OSHA in April issued an alert about hair smoothing products that may release formaldehyde despite being labeled “formaldehyde-free.”  The other substances added to the list were aristolochic acids, captafol, cobalt-tungsten carbide (in powder or hard metal form), certain inhalable glass wool fibers, o-nitrotoluene, riddelliine and styrene.

“Workers who dig or excavate trench­es are at risk of death if they enter an unprotected trench and the walls col­lapse. However, hazards associated with trench work and excavation are well defined and preventable. The OSHA standard for excavation and trenching, known as 29 CFR* 1926 Subpart P, de­scribes the precautions needed for safe excavation work.

There is no reliable warning when a trench fails. The walls can collapse sud­denly, and workers will not have time to move out of the way. Even though small amounts of dirt may not seem treacherous, a single cubic yard of dirt can weigh more than 3,000 pounds, which can fatally crush or suffocate workers [Deatherage et al. 2004]. Even small, solid pieces of dirt can cause se­rious injuries.”

This is the first few lines from a new Workplace Solutions from NIOSH on Trench Cave-Ins, Preventing Worker Deaths from Trench Cave-ins.

NIOSH has produced many Workplace Solutions brochures available to the business community on a variety of safety topics. Many of these publications are free when ordering them from NIOSH. Our federal government at work.

OSHA has established a new National Emphasis Program for the primary metals industries, targeting workers’ exposures to metal dusts and fumes, carbon monoxide, lead, silica, noise and heat hazards, according to the agency’s directive, which is dated May 19.

These establishments are involved in extracting and refining metals from rocks containing iron, lead, nickel, and tin, among other elements. Some manufacture nails, insulated wires and cables, steel piping, and copper and aluminum products.

OSHA said this became a concern from its review of data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries and data from past OSHA inspections. The directive says the NEP was developed “because of the seriousness and frequency of these problems.”

“Workers who are not properly protected from the hazards of metals refining are at increased risk of serious, potentially deadly health effects,” said Assistant Secretary Dr. David Michaels. “OSHA’s new enforcement program will raise awareness of the dangers of exposure to metals and other chemicals so that employers can correct hazards and comply with OSHA standards.

April is National Distracted Driving Month

Each day, more than 16 people are killed and more than 1,300 people are injured in crashes involving a distracted driver. Distracted driving is driving while doing another activity that takes your attention away from driving; these activities can increase the chance of a motor vehicle crash.

There are three main types of distraction:

• Visual—taking your eyes off the road;
• Manual—taking your hands off the wheel; and
• Cognitive—taking your mind off what you are doing.

Distracted driving activities include things like using a cell phone, texting, eating, drinking, and talking with passengers. Using in-vehicle technologies (such as navigation systems) and portable communication devices can also be sources of distraction. While any of these distractions can endanger the driver and others, texting while driving is especially dangerous because it combines all three types of distraction.

How big is the problem?

• In 2008, nearly 6,000 people died in crashes involving a distracted driver and more than 500,000 people were injured.
• The proportion of drivers reportedly distracted at the time of a fatal crash has increased from 8 percent in 2004 to 11 percent in 2008.
• When asked whether driving feels safer, less safe, or about the same as it did five years ago, more than 1 in 3 drivers say driving feels less safe today. Distracted driving—cited by 3 out of 10 of these drivers—was the single most common reason given for feeling less safe today.

What are the risk factors?

• Some activities—such as texting—take the driver’s attention away from driving more frequently and for longer periods than other distractions.
• Younger, inexperienced drivers under the age of 20 may be at highest risk because they have the highest proportion of distraction-related fatal crashes.

How can distracted driving be prevented?

• Many states are enacting laws—such as banning texting while driving—or using graduated driver licensing systems for teen drivers to help raise awareness about the dangers of distracted driving and to keep it from occurring.
• On October 1, 2009, President Obama issued an executive order prohibiting federal employees from texting while driving on government business or with government equipment.
• In January 2010, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration enacted an interim ban that prohibits commercial vehicle drivers from texting while behind the wheel. In March 2010, a proposed rule was announced that would make that ban stronger and more durable.
• The Department of Transportation recently launched a national campaign to encourage the public to get involved in ending distracted driving.   Put It Down focuses on the key messages that drivers can’t do two things at once, and everyone has a personal responsibility to pay attention while behind the wheel.