Construction work is a dangerous land-based work. Some work on construction sites include: building houses, roads, tree forts, workplaces and repairing and maintaining infrastructure. This work includes many dangerous tasks and conditions such as working with altitude, excavation, noise, dust, electrical equipment, and equipment. The most common casualties are caused by four fatal ones: falling, being hit by an object, electric, and trapped between two objects. Construction work has been increasing in developing and underdeveloped countries over the past few years. With this increase in work, the mortality rate in the workplace is increasing. The casualties in the workplace are individuals who died while working or doing work related jobs. In the field of construction it is important to have a secure construction site.
Video Construction site safety
Construction mortality rate
By 2014, the United States has 4,679 fatal accidents, an incidence rate of 3.3 per 100,000 full-time workers. In the same year, fatal work injuries in construction and extraction work increased 5%. One in five worker deaths in 2014 related to construction. Construction has about 6% of US workers, but 17% of casualties - the largest number of fatalities reported for any industry sector. In the UK, the construction industry is responsible for 31% of casualties in the workplace and 10% of major workplace injuries. In South Africa there are 150 deaths and about 400 injured each year associated with construction sites. In Brazil, the incidence rate for all occupational deaths was 3.6 per 100,000. (There is very little information on construction casualties to be found in Asia, South America, Africa and Antarctica.) The chart below contains more countries and levels of casualties at construction sites.
Death rate by country
Maps Construction site safety
Hazard properties
Hazards for construction workers
The main security hazards at construction sites include falls, trapped between objects, electricity, and struck objects. This danger has caused injury and death at construction sites around the world. Failure in hazard identification is often caused by limited or inaccurate training and supervision of workers. Areas where there is limited training include tasks in design for safety, safety inspection, and safety monitoring. Failure in any of these areas may result in an increased risk of exposing workers to jeopardize the construction environment.
Waterfalls are a major cause of injury in the construction industry, especially for older and untrained construction workers. In the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) Manual (29 CFR) used by the United States, fall protection is required in areas including but not limited to landing, runways, and other pathways; excavation; hoist area; hole; form of work; leading jobs; unprotected sides and edges; manufacture of excess bricks and related work; roof; erection precast; wall openings; floor openings such as holes; housing construction; and other walking/working surfaces. Other countries have rules and guidelines for fall protection to prevent injury and death.
Motor vehicle accidents are another major safety hazard at the construction site. It is important to be careful when operating motor vehicles or equipment on site. Motor vehicles must have a service brake system, emergency brake system, and parking brake system. All vehicles must be equipped with an audible warning system if the operator chooses to use them. Vehicles must have windows and doors, windshield wiper power, and a clear site view from the rear window. All employees should be trained well before using motor vehicles and equipment.
Employees at construction sites also need to be aware of the hazards in the field. Cables crossing the highway are often visible until cable ramp equipment is created to protect hoses and other equipment that must be laid out. Another common hazard that workers may encounter is excessive exposure to heat and moisture in the environment. Exhaustion in this type of weather can cause serious heat-related diseases such as heat stroke, heat exhaustion, and heat cramps. Other hazards found in construction sites include asbestos, solvents, noise, and manual handling activities.
Education and security
Construction workers should be trained and well-educated about work or work before work, which will help prevent injury and death. There are many methods of training of construction workers. One method is to train foremen at construction sites to include security in their daily oral exchange with workers to reduce work-related accidents. It is important that workers use the same language to ensure the best communication possible. In recent years, apart from sharing traditional face-to-face knowledge knowledge, mobile apps also allow knowledge sharing.
Another method is to ensure that all workers know how to use electronics, conveyors, skid-steers, trucks, air lifts, and other equipment at construction sites. Equipment in the workplace should be properly maintained and checked regularly before and after each shift. Equipment inspection systems will help operators ensure that machines are mechanically sound and in safe operating conditions. An employee should be assigned to inspect the equipment to ensure proper safety. The equipment must have lights and reflectors if intended for night use. Glass in the appliance cab should have safety glass in some countries. Equipment should be used for tasks intended at all times at the work site to ensure workers' safety.
Each construction site must have a construction site manager. It is a health and safety specialist who designs and implements safety rules to minimize injuries and accidents. It is also responsible for conducting daily safety audits and inspections to ensure compliance with government regulations. Most construction site managers have entry level or higher level experience.
Before the excavation takes place, the contractor is responsible for notifying all applicable companies that excavation work is underway. During the excavation, the contractor is responsible for providing a safe working environment for both employees and pedestrians.
Access and exit is also an important part of the safety of excavation. The ramps used by the equipment should be designed by a qualified person in structural design. No person is allowed to cross under or stand under any loading or digging equipment. Employees must remain at a safe distance from all equipment while operating. Employees who have training and education in the above areas will benefit their co-workers and themselves at the construction site.
Road construction security
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 created more than 12,600 road construction projects, more than 10,000 currently underway. Workers in the highway workplace are exposed to various hazards and face the risk of injury and death from construction equipment and motor vehicles passing by. Workers on foot are exposed to passing traffic, often at high speed, while workers who operate construction vehicles are at risk of injury from being overturned, crashed, or caught in running equipment. Regardless of the task assigned, construction workers work in poor lighting conditions, poor visibility, bad weather, heavy work areas, high traffic and speed. In 2011, there were a total of 119 fatal deaths at road construction sites. In 2010 there were 37,476 injuries in the work zone; about 20,000 of them are construction workers. Causes of injury at work sites include being hit by objects, trucks or mobile equipment (35%), falling or slipping (20%), fatigue (15%), transport incidents (12%), and exposure to hazardous substances or environments (5% ). Causes of death include getting hit by trucks (58%), mobile machines (22%), and cars (13%).
Media security campaigns
Road construction security remains a priority among workers. Some countries have implemented campaigns to address the dangers of construction zones and encourage motorists to be cautious while driving through work zones.
National Zone Security Awareness Week is held annually. The national event started in 1999 and has gained popularity and media attention every year since then. The purpose of the event is to draw national attention to the safety issues of riders and workers in the work zone.
Prevent accidents and improve security
Site preparation assistance in preventing injuries and deaths at construction sites. Site preparation includes removing debris, leveling soil, filling holes, cutting tree roots, and marking gas, water and electricity pipes. Another method of prevention at the construction site is to provide a rigid scaffold and sufficient to carry its own weight plus four times the maximum load in question without deposition or displacement.
Ways to prevent injuries and improve safety include:
- Management security
- Integrate safety as part of the work
- Create accountability at all levels
- Pay attention to security during the project planning process
- Make sure the contractor is qualified for safety
- Make sure the workers are properly trained in the appropriate areas
- Have a fall protection system
- Prevent and address substance abuse to employees
- Make security a part of everyday conversation
- Review accidents and almost happen, as well as regular inspections
- Innovative security training, e.g. adoption of virtual reality in training
- Replace some works by robots (many workers may worry that this will lower their work rate)
- BIM adoption with three-dimensional printing to construct a building model before it is put into real practice
Employees or employers are responsible for providing a fall protection system and to ensure system usage. Fall protection may be provided by a guardrail system, a safety net system, a personal fall arrest system, a positioning device system, and a warning duct system. Ensure that the ladder is long enough to reach the work area safely to prevent injury. Stairs, footprints, and pathways should be free of objects, debris and hazardous materials. A registered professional engineer must design a protective system for trenches 20 feet deep or larger for safety reasons. To prevent injury with a crane, they should be checked for damage. The operator must know the maximum load load to be lifted by the crane. All operators must be trained and certified to ensure that they operate the forklift safely.
Model of Operational Excellence to improve security for construction organizations
There are 13 safety drivers associated with this model to improve safety for construction organizations:
- Recognition & amp; Reward
- Employee Engagement
- Subcontractor Management
- Training & amp; Competence
- Risk Awareness, Management & amp; Tolerance
- Learning Organization
- Human Performance
- Transformational Leadership
- Values, Beliefs, and Assumptions
- Strategic Safety Communication
- & amp; Only & amp; Fair Practices and Procedures
- Work Organization
- The Owner Role
Each safety driver mentioned above has several sub-elements associated with it.
Personal protective equipment
Hard hats, steel boots, and reflective safety vests may be the most common personal protective equipment worn by construction workers around the world. Risk assessment may assume that other protective equipment is appropriate, such as gloves, protective goggles, or high visibility clothing.
Danger to non-workers
Many construction sites can not completely exclude non-workers. Road construction sites often have to allow traffic to pass through. This puts non-workers at a certain level of risk.
The road construction site is blocked and traffic is diverted. Sites and vehicles are protected by signs and barricades. However, sometimes these marks and barricades can jeopardize vehicular traffic. For example, barricades that are not designed properly can cause cars that attack them to roll over or even be thrown into the air. Even simple safety marks can penetrate the windshield or the roof of a car if exposed from a certain angle.
The majority of deaths in construction are caused by hazards associated with construction activities. However, many deaths are also caused by non-construction activities, such as electrical hazards. An important example of this happened when Andy Roberts, a father of four children, died in 1988 in New York while replacing a light bulb at a construction site when he made contact with a bare wire carrying two thousand volts of electricity and died. Events such as this has motivated the passage of further safety legislation related to non-construction activities such as electrical work law.
Applicable law
Under the European Union Act, there are applicable EU Directives to protect workers, notably Directive 89/391 (the Framework Directive) and Directive 92/57 (The Temporary and Mobile Sites Directive). This law is transferred to Member States and places requirements on employers (and others) to assess and protect workers' health and safety.
Europe
In the UK, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is responsible for enforcing standards, while in Northern Ireland, the Northern Ireland Health and Safety Executive (HSENI) is responsible. In Ireland, the Health and Safety Authority (HSA) is responsible for standards and law enforcement.
In Europe, the European Agency for Occupational Health and Safety coordinates actions at EU and national levels and the Directorate General for Employment, Social and Inclusion is responsible for regulation at the EU level.
United States
In the United States, Occupational Safety and Health (OSHA) establishes and enforces safety and health standards in the workplace. Efforts have been made in the first decade of the 21st century to improve the safety of road workers and drivers in construction zones. In 2004, Title 23 Section 630 Sub J of the Code of Federal Regulations was updated by Congress to include new regulations that direct state agencies to systematically establish and adopt comprehensive plans for addressing safety in road construction zones that receive federal funding.
OSHA implements the Final Rules for Improving Injury and Disease Tracking in the Workplace, which came into force on 1 January 2017. This requires employers to transmit incident data electronically to OSHA. This data will enable OSHA to use more efficient enforcement and compliance enforcement resources. The amount of data required varies by company and industry.
See also
- NIOSH Power Tools Database
- List of health and safety awards
- Occupational safety and health
- Roof edge protection
- Safety by design
- Temporary fencing
Further reading
- Reese, Charles D.; Eidson, James Vernon (2006).
OSHA Construction Safety and Health Handbook (2nd ed.). Boca Raton: CRC Press. ISBN 978-0-8493-6546-1. OCLC: 61859927.
External links
- National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health - Construction
- Executive Health and Safety - Construction
References
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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