| Workplace hazard awareness |
Description
A serious incident on a live rail site and a subsequent panel of enquiry identified the need to educate drivers about anticipating, recognising and minimising risk whilst at work, and in particular, on hazardous customer locations such as airports, live rail sites, fuel depots and major highways. Driver skills needed improving to enable them to recognise when hazards and risk factors were potentially coming to a critical turning point – ‘an incident waiting to happen’.
The company devised a simple traffic light system “The Rule of Three” which ensured that problems and potential risks are identified and dealt with prior to an incident.
GREEN – No problems
AMBER – Proceed with caution
RED – STOP WORK!!!
Where a driver experiences three AMBER conditions it automatically triggers a RED (stop work). With the improved knowledge of managing out-risk the driver can quickly improve a risky situation to a GREEN – safe situation.
A training package which uses actual examples such as the live rail incident has been developed. 12 Drivers are taken, split into teams of three, to answer searching and thought provoking questions about the risks identified in each workplace situation. By getting the teams of drivers to think ahead and manage their every day risk situations, the simple traffic light system allows them to decide when to stop work, when to mitigate hazards and when to proceed safely.
Site Safety Observation booklets have also been introduced which cover a simple “5 Point Risk Assessment” to encourage the driver to question what they are doing and the safety of continuing:
Identify the hazards
Decide who might be harmed and how
Evaluate the risks and decide on the precautions
Implement findings and record them
Review assessments, inform and update others.
Drivers are invited to many hands-on Hazard Awareness tool box talks throughout the year, which cover all aspects of good safe working practice.
The intention is to change the culture and attitude of drivers, with a view to actively promoting a safer working practice and to empower every individual to ‘Think Safe - Work Safe - Stay Safe’.
Benefits
1. Drivers better able to recognise risks in the workplace
2. Drivers are able to assess the risk and what action they should take
3. The mindset and behaviour of the drivers towards safety issues improved.
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