Large-scale construction sites create large-scale safety hazards. In this week’s #HazardSpotting, we zoom in and find lots of common problems. (How many safety violations can you find in this construction site?
Great post
See on www.mysafetysign.com
‘eternal vigilance’ is key to ensuring the safety and security of persons on a construction site, writes Mikhail Turnkov (Top tips to stay safe on site @ConstructionD #safety #construction https://t.co/nscs0pcCor)…
See on www.constructiondigital.com
UPDATED: Two injured in scaffolding incident The News Herald PANAMA CITY— One man’s heart stopped and another suffered electrical burns after a piece of metal scaffolding made contact with power lines at a church construction site Tuesday morning,…
One of the major legislative changes affecting the workplace in recent times is the adoption of BS EN ISO7010. While it isn’t yet a requirement to change all your existing safety signs to the new ISO 7010 versions, the advice is not to mix signage from different legislative standards. Best practice recommends, if changes or additions are needed, update your signs to the most recent standard. However it is always good to include safety signs in your general safety audit and incorporate them as part of your continuous improvement plan with a view to bringing them up to date as soon as possible. In fact The Health and Safety Sign Association offer the following advice regarding conformance to BS EN ISO 7010 and compliance to the Health and Safety (Signs and Signals) Regulations.
“The new changes required to conform to BS EN ISO 7010 have been adopted specifically to ensure improved intuitive comprehension of the safety message.
The legislation requires that a formal risk assessment be carried out and this will determine the need for safety signs to locate and identify lifesaving equipment, escape routes and first aid equipment.
The Health and Safety Sign Association recommend that an audit and review should be carried out to determine the residual risk associated with using a safety sign of poor non-conforming design. It is a recommendation that a plan is drawn up for their replacement. This plan will prioritise the replacement of those signs that are poorly designed and that comprehension credential have not been proven under BS ISO 9186.”
If you are unsure of your safety sign obligations contact a reputable signage company, they will be able to offer you up to date advice and may also be able to provide you a full site survey.
Cones and other warning signs. As these are the first line of defense, be sure to have sufficient signage and have it placed well ahead of the construction zone to ensure motorists have ample time to reduce travel speed.
See on www.electrons.us
2 building site deaths in 1 week
No return to London killing fields of the 80s
Construction Safety Campaign statement
http://t.co/S6k9lqPjHM
Construction site safety has got to remain a hot topic for the UK construction Industry
See on siteworker.blogspot.co.uk
City asks bike riders to dismount for construction detour
Winston-Salem Journal
Safety concerns have prompted a change to the detour for bike riders around the construction site for a new road linking Martin Luther King Jr.
The HSE is reminding UK businesses that the new version of the health and safety law poster must be displayed from 5 April this year. Under the Health and Safety Information for Employees Regulations, all employers have a legal duty to display the approved poster in a prominent position in the workplace or to provide each worker with a copy of the approved leaflet, outlining British Health and Safety law, which has also been updated.
The new 2009 versions of the poster replace the versions published in April 1999 and have been updated after research showed that the old versions were visually unappealing and rarely read, according to HSE. The newer poster has been redesigned to be more readable and engaging, as well as reflecting changes in the law.
Each copy of the 2009 poster also incorporates a unique, serially numbered hologram in the bottom right hand corner to prevent mis-selling. Although first introduced in 2009, HSE set a five year transition period for replacing the 1999 poster and a leaflet with the newer versions, with a deadline of 5th April 2014.
The 1999 versions of the approved poster are no longer for sale. You can purchase the A3 Health and Safety Law posters here or for more information visit the HSE law poster page for more info.
No smoking day is one of the UK’s biggest annual health awareness campaigns, and our range of “no smoking signs” helps companies create smoke-free environments. Every year over a million smokers will use No Smoking Day to try to quit.
The campaign is run by the British Heart Foundation, and helps smokers who want to quit by creating a supportive environment, and by highlighting the many sources of help and advice available.
No Smoking Day has been running since Ash Wednesday in 1983, when it was called Quit for the day.
The campaign is re-designed every year to help spur smokers into action.
Our mission is to appeal to smokers of all types – whatever their age, sex or social class.
We publicise and explain the help that smokers can get when they want to stop, and capture the attention of the media with lots of supportive TV, newspaper and radio coverage. No Smoking Day takes place on 12th March this year and the events website is packed with advice and resources. The Why Quit? section of the website loks in-depth at what’s in a cigarette and the health benefits of giving up smoking as well as the financial savings, with an interactive calculator to enable users to see how much money they could save each week, month and over the course of a year.
For more information please visit https://www.bhf.org.uk/smoking
According to the NHS, back pain is responsible for 7.6 million lost work days every year. One of the major causes of back pain is poor posture – a real problem for those of us who spend our days stuck behind desks.
Training to assess these factors can help employers meet their legal requirements, as well as combating the musculoskeletal disorders, reduced concentration levels and other ill-health effects that are symptomatic of time spent at poorly-designed workstations.
The other major cause of back injury is caused by lifting and moving objects in the workplace. What might surprise you is that a large proportion of these injuries are caused not by the weight of the objects, but by poor manual handling techniques. Even everyday tasks – such as changing the water cooler or refilling the printer – can occasionally lead to serious injury.
Offices can be a stressful environment on the best of days. Add to this a pressing deadline, a ‘difficult’ boss and lack of sleep and you have the potential for a Chernobyl-style melt down!
Now of course, a little bit of stress can be a positive thing – it’s only when that stress becomes excessive and prolonged that it can lead to serious mental and physical illness. In fact, according to the Chartered Institute of Professional Development, workplace stress is one of the biggest causes of employee absence – and also one of the more difficult issues to manage.
Taking regular breaks, stretching and practicing breathing exercises can all help when you’re feeling the pressure. RoSPA have also produced a comprehensive guide to managing work related stress – meaning you can take a deep breath and step away from the staple gun!
For more office safety tips, please visit RoSPA’s Workplace Safety Blog.
We also offer a wide range of slips, trips and falls signs to help make your office a safer place to work.
An amusing set of photos range from the ridiculous to downright dangerous. Some of them show workers are quite content to endanger their life to get the job done quicker. (You’ll never see anything like this on an IDG construction site…
See on www.dailymail.co.uk
See on Scoop.it – Safety Signs
The Nelson Mail
Temporary sign warns of danger
The Nelson Mail
Temporary signage has been erected at Maruia Falls, warning people not to go beyond the safety barriers after a drowning and a near-fatality during the past week.
Water safety remains a big issue particularly in the UK during this recent period of stormy weather
See on www.stuff.co.nz
Safety is a hot topic in most businesses regardless of industry sector. Safety signs or warning signs are helpful in indicating various hazards ahead. These signs also help in reducing accidents at a given workplace.
These safety signs may consists of words with safety messages, pictorial warning symbols that consists various sizes, shapes, and colours. Each colour is standardized and reflects a meaning (see our post of safety signs colours and meanings). On the other hand, there are some types of safety signs which are often in the form of posters and are designed to provide significant information or instructions to the employees, informing them of their duties and responsibilities. Other signs are designed to be displayed, when the areas are cleaned, displaying a warning that the floor is wet, often temporary and portable in nature.
When you are performing at work or in a place that is prone to accidents or an area identified by your risk assessments, the signs here are needed to guide you as you perform your tasks in the safest way possible.
Regardless of the kind of industry, safety signs are needed in every business. Hospital, construction sites, restaurants, hotels, cafes, bars, etc. are in need of these signs. Employers also need to spend time to familiarize themselves with these laws and other requirements for health and safety, and be sure that they have relevant safety signs. A reputable safety sign company can organise a site survey of your premises to ensure your signage meets current legislation and safety best practice.
Safety is an important issue that can have a huge impact on the business, whether it is big or small, regardless of the industry. Failing to update your signage as your business changes, could lead to extensive fines or have more serious consequences including prison sentences, personal injuries or even loss of life. For traditional businesses, there are various kinds of basic safety signs and symbols that might be required. It is of utmost importance that employees are well-protected from any kind of danger all the time, thus a good range of safety signs are necessary in the business.
When you think about the people who work to keep us safe in the workplace, perhaps the archetypal hero springs to mind; the person who leaps into action when things go wrong, throwing themselves into the path of danger to protect others. However, here at the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents, we think that it’s the people who act before the need for heroics that deserve to be celebrated.
It’s funny, like a handful pebbles tossed into a lake, sometimes the smallest action can make huge ripples. For example, something as simple as recognising a risk and then arranging appropriate safety signs to raise awareness can be enough to prevent a serious accident or injury. More often than not, the person who was at risk will carry on obliviously, unaware that they have been protected by ‘the silent hand of safety’.
However, we believe that it’s these sometimes actions that deserve to be rewarded. That’s why RoSPA has developed The Guardian Angel Award – so that we can shine a light on these sometimes small acts of safety that have a big impact!
So, if you know someone who has made a difference – be it through a major piece of community work or through something as simple as making appropriate signs available to protect staff – then we want to hear from you.
Visit http://www.rospa.com/awards/WhichAward/GuardianAngel/index.htm to find out more information, and nominate your RoSPA Guardian Angels today!
As the New Year comes upon us our thoughts often turn to personal improvements we intend to make over the coming year, but one much over looked resolution is the implementation of a regular safety sign audit.
Julian Rowlandson, Director at Stocksigns explains: “If you own a car it is most probable that you obtain and MOT and carry out a routine service to keep your vehicle fully functional and compliant. But few companies, despite their legal obligations to do so, regularly revisit their fire and other mandatory signage. How often does one hear of tragedy caused by fire exit routes not being clear and available for use? Often these oversights maybe associated with changes within business operations and a failure to update fire escape signs and safe routes of escape to embrace these operational changes.”
Failing to update your signage as your business changes, could lead to extensive fines or have more serious consequences including prison sentences, personal injuries or even loss of life. These simple inexpensive precautions could help protect your business, staff and visitors.
Take time to walk around your premises, it may take a couple of trips round if you have a large or complicated building layout.
Note all your existing fire and safety signs. Do you have all the necessary signs covered by legislation? Through the course of the year things happen to your building, were signs replaced after that wall got repainted? Were your signs covered up when you had the last office move round? This photograph illustrates a common example. The fire alarm call points in this hotel were relocated during a refit. Unfortunately the sign has not been updated and the fire action notice now marks just a redundant blanking plate. On the flip side, you guessed it, the alarm call points were relocated but they have failed to install the correct fire equipment signage to mark its new location. Many people find that their fire signage is often in the wrong place, check your emergency escape signage is being displayed properly. If you are not sure whether you are completely covered legally get a site survey from a reputable sign company to give you peace of mind.
While it isn’t yet a requirement to change all your existing safety signs to the new ISO 7010 versions, the advice is not to mix signage from different legislative standards. Best practice recommends, if changes or additions are needed, updating to the most recent standard. This photo shows a BS 5499 fire exit sign directly mounted next to a sign with
symbols from the EEC directive 92/58, which could lead to confusion.
Safety signs over time can become dirty or damaged and several environmental factors can affect your signs. Signs in areas of high traffic can become dirty quickly. Make sure all signs are clean and clear and can be easily read, and cleaned where needed. Replace where necessary any signs if they are illegible and beyond cleaning.
Taking time to review your premises, business practices and people flow through the building and ensuring you have the correct signage for any risks identified should form a critical and regular part of your company’s safety procedures. Routinely carrying out an audit every six months should be sufficient for most companies, with additional assessments whenever any refurbishment or reorganisation work is carried out.
Seasons greetings from everybody at Stocksigns!
In addition to emergency notification, universities and hospitals can leverage their digital signage networks for maps and directions in buildings and on campuses.
When considering your wayfinding system, all forms of signage media should be considered as part of your strategy
See on www.campussafetymagazine.com
RIDDOR reporting: are you ready for the change?
As a result of the Government’s health safety reform programme, RIDDOR has been streamlined and amended. For those of you still struggling to get to grips with the changes, this guide provides a brief summary.
RIDDOR Explained
The Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations place a legal duty on employers, the self-employed and people in control of work premises (the Responsible Person) to report certain serious workplace accidents, occupational diseases and specified dangerous occurrences (near misses). Other than for certain gas incidents, deaths and injuries only need to be reported only when:
• there has been an accident which caused the injury
• the accident was work-related
• the injury is of a type which is reportable
Please note: In relation to RIDDOR, an accident is a separate, identifiable, unintended incident, which causes physical injury. This specifically includes acts of non-consensual violence to people at work.
RIDDOR Changes
As of 2013, the HSE have implemented changes to RIDDOR to clarify and simplify the reporting requirements. According to the HSE, the main changes are in the following areas:
• The classification of ‘major injuries’ to workers is replaced with a shorter list of ‘specified injuries’.
• The existing schedule detailing 47 types of industrial disease is replaced with eight categories of reportable work-related illness.
• Fewer types of ‘dangerous occurrence’ require reporting.
There are no significant changes to the reporting requirements for:
• fatal accidents;
• accidents to non-workers (members of the public); and
• accidents resulting in a worker being unable to perform their normal range of duties for more than seven days
How an incident at work is reported and the criteria that determine whether an incident should be investigated by the enforcing authority remain the same.
For more information on how the RIDDOR changes could affect you, please visit the RoSPA Workplace Safety Blog.
This is Lincolnshire Bricklayer’s death showed safety flaws on Lincolnshire construction site This is Lincolnshire A CONSTRUCTION company and its site manager have each been ordered to pay £77,500 court costs after admitting to health and safety…
‘A sad but cautionary tale’ Sandy Barnes from First Call Signs
The Department of Transport has updated its code of practice on work safety at street works and road works sites, with more emphasis on risk assessment, site-specific design and the needs of the pedestrians and other vulnerable road users.
Street works are, of course, essential for a range of reasons. But unfortunately, they
can cause considerable local disruption, increasing congestion and journey times.
This increases frustration and can result in drivers and riders taking increased risks
and endangering their own and others safety.
Pedestrian traffic can also be disrupted by road works and improperly reinstated
pavements can cause injury through trips and falls. Such injuries can be particularly
serious in the case of older pedestrians.
The statutory Code of practice 2013 revises and updates the exisiting Code of practice 2001, which is known informally as the ‘safety code’ or the ‘red book’.
The Department for Transport says the new guidnace is simpler to follow and the site layout diagrams have been redrawn to make them easier to understand. The advie on high visibility clothing and visibility requirements for works vehicles has also been updated.
Additional guidance has been included on mobile and short duration works and working near tramways and railways. The Code of practice comes into force on 1 October 2014. It applies to signing, lighting and guarding of street works and road works on all highways and roads, except motorways and dual carriageways witht he speed limit of 50mph or more.
In response to a previous consultaion paper from the Department of Transport, RoSPA commented
“RoSPA welcomes the work being undertaken by all the parties involved in street
works to ensure that necessary street works can carried out with the minimum
amount of disruption. It is beneficial that this Code of Practice continues to develop
to meet changing circumstances and RoSPA hopes that this will continue.”
For more information visit the Department of Transport and RoSPA. Stocksign can supply a range of products for safe working practice for street works, including cones, stackable and chapter 8 barriers, temporary road works signs, hi-vis clothing and other PPE equipment, order our catalogue for more details.
Sydney Morning Herald South Africa building site collapses, one worker dead, 50 trapped Reuters UK If safety regulations are found to have been breached, the accident could sour already fraught labour relations in South Africa’s construction sector…
Tragically Construction sites still provide some of the most hazardous working environments today. Construction safety signage has to stay at the top of the industry agenda.
See on uk.reuters.com
Digital Signage
6 easy ways to boost holiday sales with digital signage
Digital Signage Today
The holidays are nearly upon us, and the oncoming holiday sales season is crucially important for retailers.
Our sister company Messagemaker Display can help you create didgital LED signs with high impact which can drive sales
See on www.digitalsignagetoday.com
Wayfinding Signs News
Wayfinding sign bid accepted
Stanwood Camano News
A bid was even accepted.
Stocksigns are one of the UK leading manufacturers of wayfinding signage schemes. Use our wayfinding guide to get the best out of your signage.
Commissioner proposes signage changes to increase area visitation Rapid City Journal Aker said he wants the county to work with the cities of Sturgis, Piedmont and Summerset to develop signage along Interstate 90 that will direct drivers to the…
Signage can be the key to boosting both volume and ease of flow of visitors to a town or attractions
