APRIL 2014
Working hand in glove to improve safety
Construction company CarillionWSP takes the safety of its road workers seriously and recently worked closely with Polyco, a leader in designing, developing and supplying high quality hand protection to identify a glove that provides the best protection whilst maintaining dexterity and grip
With a large proportion of CarillionWSP’s road workers laying out cones, signs and barriers on some of the UK’s busiest all purpose trunk roads (ATPR’s), their hand protection needs to be up to the task. The workers were experiencing a loss of grip with their existing gloves and it became clear they needed to fi nd a glove that would suit working in both, wet, dry and oily conditions, which is when they called upon Polyco’s expertise.
In August 2013, a health and safety briefi ng issued by the Highways Agency highlighted that, more than a third of all accidents reported by road workers each year are associated with manual
handling1 . The most common type
of injury is to hands and fi ngers, with many of these injuries leading to a lost time injury.
To avoid hand injuries, the Highways Agency recommends carrying out a risk assessment that identifi es the minimum performance level required and engages with road workers to ensure the gloves work for them2
.
CarillionWSP was invited to Polyco’s headquarters in Enfi eld, North London where they undertook trials of various gloves, explaining and highlighting the issues they were encountering. The trials helped to identify a safety glove that would suit the conditions faced by road workers in their day-to-day activities.
Due to the wide variety and number of gloves on offer from Polyco, the best
The company trialled more than 20 pairs of gloves before deciding on the best option
option was for CarillionWSP to trial various forms of safety gloves. One of CarillionWSP’s impact protection vehicles was brought to the Polyco headquarters, where they demonstrated the issues workers had when setting out cones and signs on the roads. This enabled Polyco to gain a clearer idea of the type of glove needed by the company.
Teams of workers from CarillionWSP tried out various pairs of safety gloves, trialling them in both wet and dry conditions. New prototypes and variants of gloves used in other industries, including a glove used by utility companies that provided extra grip were tested. After trialling more than 20 pairs of gloves, it was agreed that the new Grip It Oil glove offered the best grip in the various conditions along with good abrasion resistance, durability and a long life expectancy.
The glove has two layers of nitrile coating that maximises the handling ability in both wet and dry conditions. The fi rst layer is a fl at nitrile coating providing a liquid barrier, the second layer features a foamed nitrile coating on the palm that not only increases resistance to oils but has been engineered to provide maximum grip.
Sources
1
http://assets.highways.gov.uk/our- road-network/major-projects-delivery- hub-health-%26-safety-action-group/ Hub%20H%26S%20Briefi ng%20 August%202013.pdf
CarillionWSP demonstrated the issues
road workers had when setting out cones and signs on the roads
2
http://assets.highways.gov.uk/our- road-network/major-projects-delivery- hub-health-%26-safety-action-group/ B8%20Manual%20Handling.pdf
www.highwaysmagazine.co.uk
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