Category: Engineering, Product Liability, Safety Human Factors Focus on Warnings, Part l: Labels, Signs, and Tags TASA ID: 568 Failure to warn has become a common cause of action in products liability and tort litigation. Over the past 15 years, much scientific research has been conducted on the subjects of warning design and effectiveness. As discussed here, a warning is a label, sign, or tag used to communicate hazard information. (Note: Part II, a sequel, will discuss visual and auditory warning devices and alarms.) The purpose of a warning is to modify human behavior and ensure safety compliance, i.e. to give the worker or user an opportunity to avoid harm. Read more
Category: Food Safety and Production, Safety Injuries in Food Manufacturing TASA ID: 2482 Food manufacturing has one of the highest injury and illness rates compared to all industries. Repetitive motion, (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2011) manual handling, slips and trips, and being hit by moving objects (Health and Safety Executive, 2011) are among the most common sources. Read more
Category: Construction, Safety Open Roof Holes and Roofing Injury Prevention TASA ID: 3404 A roofing foreman and crew arrive at the season's first commercial re-roofing project, as he directs his team to load tools and materials to the rooftop, workers set up ladders to gain access to the roof above. Onsite less than five minutes and without notice, one of the roofers inadvertently loses his balance, falling onto a weathered skylight, shattering the opaque-plastic, falling 60-feet to the concrete floor below, and perishes from blunt force trauma. Read more
Category: Construction, Safety Roofing Construction Toxicity and Flammability Hazards TASA ID: 3404 In order to reduce energy costs in roofing construction, contractors install cool roofs1 aka Single-Ply Roofing, as estimated by Bob Craig in EDC Magazine, "The majority of new roofing is a white single-ply membrane, either TPO (thermoplastic polyolefin) or PVC (polyvinyl chloride). This is due mostly to new energy codes that require reflective roofing to reduce heat absorption into the structure.” Read more
Category: Maritime / Boating Accidents, Safety What's Your H2O (Safety) IQ?: How well can you answer these 20 boating and water safety questions? TASA ID: 1723 1. [a] How many drowning deaths occur in the U.S. annually? In 2014, the total went down to about 4,000 per the National Safety Council. In 1980, there were 8,000 drownings nationally. Why: CPR, *PFDs - improved life jackets, EMS, **ETH-updated information about alcohol/aquatic dangers. But much more can be and needs to be done.*(Personal Flotation Devices-Life Jackets) ** (Ethanol-Grain alcohol, as in beverages) Read more
