Abby is a self-employed doula and part of what is known as the “grey fleet”: workers who drive a vehicle during the course of their work but not as their work. Self-employed workers face the same road safety issues as other people who drive while working for employers, so they have to know the risks and take the necessary precautions.
Here in Vancouver BC, more than 3,500 cyclists commute to work downtown every morning. A video from the bigger city of Boston shows how they deal with the combo of cyclists, pedestrians, and drivers.
Tires can explode with deadly force – as you will see in these videos. A guy at my local coffee shop told me about his experience with an exploding tire when he was a mobile mechanic for broken-down trucks in Ontario and Quebec. A driver destroyed his own tire by driving more than 500 kilometres with a locked brake – and this led to a big explosion during the attempted repair. At first the mechanic didn’t realize how much the tire was damaged, and it exploded and flew six feet when he was inflating it to see where the leak was.
Most room cleaners are women, many are immigrants, and their injury rate is the highest among hotel workers. Ergonomic hazards are a reality when you’re pushing carts, making beds, lifting, and bending – along with the risks of risk of slips, trips, and falls.
“Once a person is completely under the surface of the grain, ‘drowning’ happens quickly, as the grain and grain dust quickly enter the nose and mouth, making it impossible to breathe,” says Nicole Hornett, a farm safety coordinator with the Alberta government. “The further someone is buried into the grain, the harder it is to pull them back out, countering the force, friction and the additional weight of the grain.”
In the US, a government program – named in memory of 25 dead miners – is offering $1-million in safety training grants for mining employers. In 2010, 48 miners died in the US and no miners died in BC.
A writer needs a good chair. That was the word from a university professor I had 20 years ago. Without a good chair, he said, writers may sit awkwardly, overstraining their muscles. Doing this for many years can lead to repetitive strain injuries.
I notice them around this time of year, as school goes back after the summer – kids laden down with much more than I ever had to carry. Sadly, this can lead to chronic back problems later in life, so if you’re a parent, teacher, or caregiver, please remember that kids should not be expected to carry more than 10 to 15 percent of their own body-weight in backpacks.
At the SafetyCommunity.com site, members post photos and join groups that discuss ergonomics, construction, health care, machine safety, mental well-being, hearing protection, gas detection, fall protection, e-learning, and more. Why isn’t this great resource more popular?
A reader helped his boss change a light bulb in an awkward spot, two stories up on the underside of a catwalk. Two workers lowered the boss in a harness, using a rope, a D-ring, and human muscle. This was their solution to having no ladder, no scaffolding, and no lift high enough to change the bulb.
