FEATURE FEAR OF FAULT Gary Escot t, Director of SiteZone Safety, discusses how improving
anti-collision safety practices using technology can reduce work- related stress in plant operators.
There is often a misconception that plant operators elevated in big vehicles have a visual advantage and know what’s going on all around them. Their focus however, is operating the machine and doing their job. One of plant operators’ primary concerns is hitting a colleague that they can’t see behind a blind spot. It makes their working day stressful while trying to function safely.
SHAKING THE TABOO Stress at work has become one of the top reasons for absenteeism in the work place, across various industries. Certain sectors like construction and waste still require continuous attention, initiatives and practice revision to improve safety.
The HSE’s (Health & Safety Executive) high injury and fatality figures suggest that spatial awareness is not always present when personnel are working in close proximity to vehicles and plant. Between 2016-17, the HSE construction industry statistics show that being struck by a moving vehicle was the most common kind of fatal accident.
COMBATTING ONE RISK AT A TIME We realised that using an RFID (radio frequency identification) proximity warning system (PWS) could make a real difference to a plant operator’s working day. After using our PWS regularly, the feedback became better as workers felt more secure using PWS to detect personnel collision risks they couldn’t see.
It’s not dissimilar to blind spot technology for cars assisting safe changing of lanes; technology detects and informs of the risk of oncoming vehicles from behind, obscured in the blind spot. The motorist avoids having to make a sudden and stressful emergency manoeuvre to avoid an oncoming vehicle.
A study carried out by Balfour Beatty Rail showed how behaviours changed when using an RFID PWS on site. Vehicle operators were not so anxious and pedestrian personnel were more vigilant about their distance from vehicles.
The usual suspects that tend to cause plant and vehicle operators anxiety on a regular basis, as we’ve discovered, are:
Large plant vehicles with blind spots: Commonplace on construction sites, plant vehicles can be sizeable
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with quite a few blind spots as a result. Having spoken to plant operators, the blind spot is one of the most stress inducing aspects of operating a vehicle like an excavator, telehandler, tipping dumper or roller. They never know when someone might stray into the machine’s blind spot while the vehicle is moving.
Vehicles and people sharing tight spaces: At busy sites there will always be crossing points where people and vehicles have a higher likelihood of interacting. The HSE makes it very clear that where such points exist there must be robust measures in place – signage and signals.
Despite signs and barriers as part of segregation measures, there are still accidents. Lorry drivers, forklift operators and dumper operators are all examples of jobs where, while loading, off-loading, turning and reversing, visibility can be hampered.
LISTEN TO WORKERS’ CONCERNS ABOUT
SAFETY By listening to workers’ concerns, as employers and safety professionals, we can help to make working lives better, safer, and happier.
We should remember that technology doesn’t have to make existing practices obsolete, it can enhance practices enough to virtually eliminate certain risks. Collaboration, knowledge and data sharing should drive the innovation to safeguard people’s working environments, so they go home unharmed at the end of the day.
www.proximitywarning.com/
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