News

CLOCS raises the stakes in road safety tracking Free CLOCS Manager service will allow contractors to log accidents and near misses

The Construction Logistics and Cycle Safety [CLOCS] campaign to squeeze risk factors out of construction’s road transport operations will this month launch a free web-based software system to allow construction companies to track road safety and compare their performance with peers. The new CLOCS Manager system will be

available free to any company that requests details via the CLOCS website. Contractors will be able to upload details of any

accidents related to their fl eets, or the type of “near misses” routinely recorded on construction sites. Drivers will fi ll in an online form, either at the side of the road if there’s been an accident, or back at base if it was a near miss. Contractors will be able to see their own data,

and how it compares with anonymised, pooled data from other users. Mike Eames, a spokesman for CLOCS, told CM:

“CLOCS Manager enables people to collate collision and near miss data. If we want people to take road risk seriously, as seriously as on-site accidents, then we need similar levels of recording and logging of incidents and near misses. I hope that CLOCS Manager will be widely adopted across the construction industry and become the industry standard tool for collision reporting — you don’t have to be a CLOCS Champion to use the software.” CLOCS hopes to improve transparency on the

industry’s road safety record, Eames added. “In construction some people are reporting and some aren’t, although they should do. Where there have

been injuries, the police will capture the data via STATS19 accident reporting, people will also report to their insurance companies, and companies will have their own internal systems, but they are all different. With the CLOCS Manager system, you can input the information, then see how your data compares with anonymised averages for the other industry users.”

Eames stresses that the system is not simply a F

database, but will offer users intelligence and insight on reducing risks. “We can collate all of the incident data everywhere, which means we will be able to put alerts out — for example, if a specifi c junction is proving dangerous, we can tell people using CLOCS Manager to avoid it. So the point is not just to log the incidents, but to learn from them, right across the country — it’s a learning instrument.” The CLOCS campaign currently has 40 “champions”, including Mace, Skanska, Lend Lease and Vinci, which commit to embed challenging safety standards across their supply chains nationally. Its requirements cover traffi c routing, accident reporting, driver training and fi tting safety measures to eliminate vehicles’ blind spots. CLOCS is now also aligned with the silver

“If we want people to take road risk seriously, as seriously as on-site accidents, then we need similar levels of recording and logging of incidents and near misses” Mike Eames, CLOCS

standard Fleet Operators Recognition Scheme (FORS), so that any truck or HGV with FORS silver accreditation will meet the standards applying at sites run by Mace or other CLOCS champions. The CLOCS scheme is project managed by Aecom on behalf of Transport for London.

Costain steps up battle against respirable silica dust on site

Costain is launching new guidance on preventing and controlling exposure to silica dust on its construction sites. The move follows an HSE blitz on small sites

that found high levels of non-compliance with current guidance, as well as a campaign in Hazards magazine calling on the HSE to halve the allowable limit in the UK in line with a limit proposed by US regulators. Inhaling silica dust while drilling or cutting

products such as concrete or mortar can lead to lung diseases including silicosis, an infl ammation and scarring of the lungs. Dust builds up gradually in the lung over

time, leading to life-changing or fatal damage. Costain’s new three-part guidance will be

6 | SEPTEMBER 2014 | CONSTRUCTION MANAGER

launched on 1 September. The fi rst theme is dust extraction, ensuring

that power tools are fi tted with a local exhaust ventilation system, to prevent dust getting into the atmosphere in the fi rst place. Veronica Robins, health and well-being manager, said: “Secondly, we will be reinforcing the requirement for all workers wearing tight fi tting protective masks to be ‘face fi t tested’, which is a means of assessing how well a mask seal to a face. [Male] workers need to be clean shaven in order to get a good seal and avoid leaks.” The third strategy is called “lose the broom”.

Robins explained: “Dry sweeping creates huge amounts of dust, particularly indoors. We will

be encouraging the use of vacuum cleaners. If brooms have to be used, then the material should be damped down fi rst.” Health champions on each site will work

with Costain advisers to get the anti-dust message across to the workforce. The UK and US currently share the same

0.1mg per cubic metre workplace exposure standard for respirable crystalline silica, but the US regulator, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration [OSHA], says that this standard is over four decades old, and has proposed reducing it to 0.05mg per m3

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But according to Hazards, the HSE says that technological limitations make monitoring below current exposure standards diffi cult.

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