NTSB Offers Information on Managing Commercial Motor Vehicle Driver Fatigue Risks
A photo of the 3-D image of the truck, which appeared in The Washington Post, helped the NTSB investigate the crash. Fox said investigators discovered that the Walmart truck driver had made a personal trip during his off-duty time, traveling 800 miles (12 hours) from his terminal in Delaware to visit his home in Georgia. The driver then drove back to Delaware and continued with his entire planned route. The NTSB determined he’d been awake for almost 24 hours at the time of the crash.
Walmart didn’t have any restrictions on how far away a driver could live from their terminal. Although the company uses collision avoidance systems on its vehicles, these systems were not fully operational. Fox said NTSB found that critical event reports were not being generated. Walmart did address fatigue as part of its driver training, but Fox relayed that it did not have a structured fatigue management program. The company has since implemented numerous safety improvements that address driver fatigue.
Additionally, Fox discussed the four elements of creating a fatigue management program:
Good safety culture with continuous education Policies and Procedures, to provide structure to support the culture of safety Training and Education, including obtaining rest off-duty Evaluation of the success of the program may use accident data Fox suggested that insurance companies are excellent partners to work with when creating a fatigue management system, as they can provide tools to help reveal vulnerabilities.
Protester re-occupies Burnaby tree after Trans Mountain suspends project … Trans Mountain suspended all work in Burnaby and across the entire pipeline route starting Friday, Dec. 18 until Jan. 4, 2021.
The move came after a worker with a contractor at the Westridge Marine Terminal in Burnaby was seriously injured on Tuesday. Another work in Edmonton died after an accident.
In a statement, the company admitted it needs to “improve” safety on the project.
“Trans Mountain is proactively taking the step to temporarily stand down construction on the Expansion Project to review, reset and refocus our efforts, and those of our contractors and their workers,” said Ian Anderson, president and CEO of Trans Mountain, in a statement. “We are committed to a strong culture of safety above all else and insist that our project contractors and subcontractors are equally committed. The critical success of any organization is its ability to self-reflect – to honestly and courageously ask the question, ‘where can we improve?’. This is non-negotiable, we must improve the safety culture and performance on our project.”
The injury was reported to the Canada Energy Regulator late Tuesday and its safety specialists were on-site Wednesday. All work in Burnaby had been shut down, but now the work will halt across the entire project.
In October 2017, Khansaheb MEP started its frontline supervisor training for senior staff with 47 members completing both the two day and one day refresher training course which finished in 2019. After each course, a presentation and feedback session was organised to develop future courses.
It is now looking to launch the third phase of its training program which is aimed at positioning its training at a level not seen in the UAE. The operatives going through this six day course will be trained on Health and Safety, accurate measurements and scales, waste management and innovative techniques for improving HSE, quality and productivity.
The celebration also marked the achievement of 4 million man-hours LTI free for Khansaheb MEP.
Khansaheb’s ‘Aim to be Accident Free’ program has inculcated a safety culture in the organisation that all its business units are contributing towards.
Commenting on the double achievement, Khansaheb MEP general manager David Duffy said: “People development is an important pillar of our strategy. We are very proud of what our training teams have achieved over the last 5 years and the attainment of 4 million man-hours LTI free across the division is a testament to the success of our training programs and the commitment of our people towards HSE.”
Another traveller found to have breached Sydney quarantine and flown to Melbourne
The Park Royal hotel has operated throughout the period in which Victoria’s hotel quarantine program was suspended for some returned travellers and maritime workers, according to the government.
While the department confirmed the man tested negative to COVID-19 on day three and day 11 of his two-week quarantine, AMA Victoria president Julian Rait said the fact there had already been a known instance of a breach in the system before Saturday’s incident spoke to his organisation’s ongoing concerns that DHHS had “a lack of an adequate safety culture”.
“The best healthcare institutions have an open disclosure policy where not only are patients told of any unexpected mistake, but staff are encouraged to reveal them and examine how they might be prevented in the future.
“That applies equally as much to NSW as Victoria, it’s easy to be critical but I think we all need to reflect on what’s the most appropriate organisational culture that will lead to better outcomes.”
Ep.55 Are injury rates statistically invalid?
Topics:
What it means when something isn’t peer-reviewed. Why statistics are ever popular. How many workers hours to decimal places. Using a model that weighs underlying variables and randomness. How this study is another nail in the coffin for this question. Practical takeaways.
Quotes:
“I’ve noticed in Australia, at least, there’s an increasing move to have safety statistics included in annual reports, at least for publicly traded companies.”
“And their conclusion was: Almost all of it was explained by randomness.”
“If recordable injury rates are used to record performance, then we’re actually rewarding random variation.”
How to build a safe environment when working with equipment rental
Cleanliness is an essential component to crafting a successful safety culture.
In the current public health environment, it is also the subject of numerous conversations and the emphasis of new protocols across industries – and the world. At United Rentals, safety is entrenched in the culture and the additional precautions on top of those foundational operating principles help ensure our teams and customers can continue to operate safely.
A safe equipment shop follows a set of standard principles. The foundational safety best practices that have been instituted regularly, even before COVID-19, are what we continue to encourage and emphasize.
As companies look to rent equipment to address their worksite needs, they need to have confidence the equipment rental provider adheres to best practices for disinfecting equipment touch points.
The starting point includes operations that allow for and adhere to social distancing guidelines. Next, while personal protective equipment (PPE) has long been recognized as essential to a safe work environment, current conditions have led to rental companies providing additional gear to protect from health hazards, such as masks and gloves.
Fleet safety culture depends on data — and the right benchmarks
The format of the data is changing, too, with the increasing popularity of video-based systems.
“Cameras are a part of our future,” Carver said.
Neither speaker presented that trend as a cause for concern.
Osiecki compared truck-based videos to game film, which is reviewed by coaches and players alike. Each person should be able to learn something from the data. When a safety culture is established, drivers can even use the video to self coach themselves up to a point, he added.
Such tools are voluntary for now.
Osiecki said he wouldn’t be surprised if the incoming Biden Administration will look at mandating cameras for trucks, but he believes other vehicle-focused systems would be considered first.
How to build a stronger safety culture with your team
As Australia’s economy tries to adjust to a new normal after the emergence of Covid19, businesses are facing many new challenges. Our clients have seen that these changes have had both positive and negative impacts on the transport industry’s safety culture.
With no expectation that things will go back to the way they were, managing change and protecting your team will be continue to be critical to business success in coming months.
Below are some tips on how can leaders and managers take the good from this disruption to strengthen and build a stronger safety culture with their wider team.
Firstly, what is a strong safety culture?
If you think of safety culture as “what we do around here”, a strong safety culture is one which; • Teams take ownership and respectfully hold each other accountable • Clear policies and procedures are communicated, adhered to and regularly reviewed • Incidents and near misses are openly reported, discussed and learning implemented and shared • WHS is taken seriously, and prioritised
[Improvements at Stepping Hill’s A&E after ‘inadequate’ rating - but inspectors say more work is still needed]
The report added: “The increase in staffing numbers and the changes in the nursing leadership had led to an improved patient safety culture in the department.”
Overall, the CQC said the ‘momentum of change’ at Stepping Hill’s A&E needed to be maintained to ensure improvements were sustainable in the medium and long term, including times of increased pressure, like winter.
[The British department trying to reset workers’ attitudes toward health and safety] [cen.acs.org/safety/Br…)
Bring up health and safety in many workplaces, and you get rolled eyes paired with comments about masses of red tape and wasted time. But the COVID-19 pandemic has refocused minds, especially as universities and industry laboratories reopen after shutdowns meant to control the spread of the novel coronavirus, says Ed Corbett, head of human and organizational performance at the British Health and Safety Executive (HSE) Science Division.Employers worldwide have been charged with making their work environments as safe from the virus as possible. In Great Britain, part of the HSE’s role is to support such efforts with advice and guidelines while also conducting spot checks to make sure workplaces are compliant with COVID-19-related rules.
The HSE isn’t just a regulatory body, however. It conducts its own research and works with collaborators from industry and academia across a wide range of topics, all under the umbrella of health and safety research. This somewhat unique twinning of responsibilities—collaborator and regulator—is one of the organization’s strengths, according to Neil Bourne, a professor in the department of mechanical, aerospace, and civil engineering at the University of Manchester who codirects a research institute created by the university and HSE. “The regulatory and science divisions work together in a way that coordinates and enhances them both,” he says. “HSE works with the industry rather than being a prescriptive and distant entity.”
The HSE employs more than 850 scientists and engineers. They work across several key areas of interest for the agency: data analysis, engineering, economics, health, human factors, major hazards, risk, and social and psychological sciences.
[https://safetyofwork.com/episodes/ep-50-what-is-the-relationship-between-safety-work-and-the-safety-of-work] (Ep. 50 What is the relationship between safety work and the safety of work
Topics:
The struggle to articulate what it means when we say a safety practice “works”. How we titled our paper. Putting together our own peer review. Risk assessment. The goal in writing their paper. Categorizing safety work. Why certain safety rules and requirements exist. Casting a critical eye on your own organization. Practical takeaways.
Quotes:
“…I could see that people put far more attention in real life on doing assessment and assurance activities, than they spend on insurance activities.”
“Social safety is very much conceptual work. It’s aimed at making safety be a value in the organization and letting the organization believe that it is a champion of safety.”
“We’re fairly sure that lots of the stuff we do in the name of safety…has some impact on the safety of work, but we don’t know which bits…”
Ep.49 What exactly is a peer reviewed journal paper?
EPISODE SUMMARY On this episode of the Safety of Work podcast, we discuss peer reviewed journal papers. We dig into what they are and how they function. Whether you are using them for research purposes or setting out to write your own peer-reviewed paper, this conversation should prove useful.
EPISODE NOTES This topic was a request from one of our listeners. Join us as we dig into this frequently asked question and let you know all about academic journals and what you can take away from findings therein.
Topics:
Explaining academic journals. The ease of accessing journals in the Internet age. What makes a reputable journal. The peer-review process. Why some peer-reviews take longer than others. Qualitative vs. quantitative research. Why submission numbers are going up. Journal shopping and its risks. Practical takeaways.
Quotes:
“I still sort of think fondly…of doing my PhD and…you could look up the catalogues online. So, you could sit at your desk and find a reference to the paper, but then you’d need to wander the shelves and find the right volume and pull it down and take it to the photocopy machine.”
“Sometimes if a paper hasn’t advanced satisfactorily between reviews, then the editor will just make a call…”
“You know that you’re going to get peer reviewers that think that research is quantitative.”
Ep.45 Why do we need complex models to explain simple work? Topics:
Using FRAM. Vulnerable Systems Syndrome. STAMP diagrams. How the researchers collected their data. Functions that are common and functions that are outliers. The benefits of implementing a FRAM model. Conclusions drawn by the research paper.
Quotes:
“Every function of a system is a hexagon and every vertex of that hexagon stands for a different way that, you know, this function can be connected with the next function.”
“The authors say that the interviews had just one question, which was ‘how do you perform your job?”
“What I like about the use of a FRAM model would be, I think it will allow organizations to narrow that gap between work as imagined and work as done.”
[Medics asked to develop patient safety culture] [capitalradio.co.ug/medics-as…)
Working in stressful environments has been cited as a factor that makes health workers prone to errors which might occasionally cause bodily harm to patients.
According to ministry of health permanent secretary Dr Diana Atwine, “health workers are grappling with unprecedented challenges including healthcare-associated infections, violence, stigma, psychological and emotional disturbances, illness, and death.”
While speaking at the event commemorating World Patient Safety Day 2020, held under the theme Health Worker Safety: A Priority for Patient Safety, Dr Atwine implored health facility managers to develop a patient safety culture in health facilities where the patient is treated as a partner and health workers are trained and empowered to reduce patient harm and the risk of errors.
Kerala Plane Crash: Safety Experts Demand Preliminary Probe Report Be Made Public
A Boeing 737 aircraft, carrying 191 passengers had skidded off a tabletop runway and fallen into a gorge more than a month ago on August 7 at Calicut International Airport. Twenty-one passengers, including the two pilots onboard, lost their lives.
The International Civil Aviation Organisation’s (ICAO) investigation norms mandates a preliminary probe report to be prepared and shared with it within 30 days of the date of the accident.
“Preliminary reports may be marked as confidential or remain public at the investigating state’s discretion,” the ICAO’s Annexure 13, which deals with accident investigation, says. Aviation experts want the report to be made public. They argue that transparency promotes safety culture and awareness of threats.
“Countries like Indonesia, Ethiopia and Pakistan have released preliminary reports to the public and the information contained in the report has generated tremendous public response and assured that a comprehensive final report will benefit all the stakeholders,” Amit Singh, an aviation expert and a pilot, said. Singh alleged that when he wrote to Aurobindo Handa, DG, Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB), Handa refused to even acknowledge that whether the AAIB has submitted the report to ICAO or not.
Constant training can help prevent man overboard incidents
Man overboard (MOB) incidents are among the top causes of injuries and fatalities on inland towing vessels, and preventing such incidents requires constant training and vigilance by all employees, from boat crews to shoreside personnel.
That’s a conclusion of a security expert who explained how Marathon Petroleum is confronting the problem during a Sept. 1 safety webinar organized by the American Waterways Operators as part of its Virtual Summer of Safety series.
Man overboard “is your number one (risk) exposure,” said Eric Fetty, emerging response and security coordinator at Marathon’s Marine Division in Cattlesburg, Ky. “The numbers don’t lie — when you look at crew fatalities by accident type, over 50 percent of industry fatalities are due to falls in the water, so with an exposure like that you have to pay attention.”
In introducing the discussion, Brian Bailey, AWO’s director of safety and environmental stewardship, cited data collected in 2019 by the Coast Guard-AWO Safety Partnership that showed a doubling of crew fatalities from 2014-2016, with nearly half caused by falls overboard. Data from the Coast Guard and incident reports showed that 68% of MOB incidents occur at night 32% during the day, nearly 60% occur in the first half of the calendar year, indicating the influence of dangerous winter weather conditions, and the majority occur on the Lower Mississippi and Ohio Rivers.
Focus on MOB accidents began to ramp up at Marathon after a fatality in 2010. The company reviewed its safety culture and as a result, “a lot good things have come about,” Fetty said. With the help of a third-party consultant, Marathon created a program that includes training and refresher courses for everyone in the company with a special emphasis on teaching new deckhands measures to prevent and react to overboard falls.
New deckhands spend close to a month in the classroom, he said, and then continue riverside at a training pad that simulates the deck of a barge for hands-on exercises. With a diver in the water, man overboard drills are practiced using specialized equipment. The new hires also train on harbor boats before being sent out on a line boat for their first hitch.
Dangers in decommissioning in the oil and gas industry
Decommissioning is a significant phase in the lifecycle of every rig – and one that requires particularly careful management to maintain the hard-won high standards in health and safety that prevail in the oil and gas industry.
This poses challenges for offshore business in the region, but also presents considerable opportunities. There are 600 oil and gas platforms in the North Sea, of which 470 are scheduled to be decommissioned over the next 30 years. The UK will be the largest global decommissioning market over the next decade, with approximately 880,000 tonnes of topside forecast for removal.
Oil & Gas UK estimates that over £15 billion will be spent on decommissioning around the UK in that time – with the result that decommissioning now accounts for 10% of the overall expenditure of the UK industry.
Decommissioning provides a great opportunity to leverage the existing knowledge base within oil and gas, and this should extend to the hard-earned health and safety culture seen within the industry, with self-regulation increasingly becoming the norm.
Ep.39 Do accident investigations actually find the root causes?
To frame our chat, we reference the papers, Our Current Approach to Root Cause Analysis and What-You-Look-for-is-What-You-Find.
Determining root causes of accidents. Why investigations are social processes. An explainer on editorials. What “process change” really means. Applying the Swiss Cheese Model. Confirmation bias in research. Only finding what you can fix. The difference between internal and external investigations. Practical takeaways from the studies.
Quotes:
“What they suggested was that we should always have a very strong evaluation process around any corrective action to test and check whether it actually addresses the things that we’re trying to address.”
“To really understand how the investigation has happened, you’ve got to talk to the investigators as they’re doing the investigation…”
“I can’t imagine a safety person taking to the board a recommendation that they weren’t sure themselves, they could fix.”
EU plans to include food safety culture in regulation
The European Commission has published draft legislation that includes food safety culture.
A revision of Regulation (EC) No 852/2004 on food hygiene also covers allergen management, and redistribution of food.
The Codex Alimentarius Commission is expected to adopt a revision of its standard on General Principles of Food Hygiene in the next few months. This update introduces the food safety culture concept as a general principle. Food safety culture’s aim is to increase awareness and improve the behavior of employees in establishments.
Considering the change of this standard and expectations of consumers and trade partners that food produced in the EU complies with such a standard, it is necessary to include general requirements on food safety culture in EU regulation, according to the EU Commission.
The draft introduces requirements on good hygiene practices to prevent or limit the presence of substances causing allergies or intolerances in equipment, conveyances, and/or containers used for harvesting, transport, or storage of foodstuffs.
Part of the new legislation asks management and all employees of businesses to commit to an appropriate food safety culture which includes a clear distribution of responsibilities, appropriate training, and supervision, and verifying controls are performed timely and efficiently and documentation is up to date.
Ep.38 Can we get ready for automation by studying non-automated systems?
Topics:
The small ferry referenced in the paper and the plans to replace it with an automated craft. Why commercial vessels get priority in the water. Incorporating human factors into the study of boats. What you lose by automating this particular ferry. Strategizing the right of way in the water. Interpreting Norwegian navigation rules. Why replacing the captain with an autonomous system could prove disastrous.
Munson Healthcare Manistee Hospital medical assistant honored for ‘Speaking Up’
MANISTEE — The Michigan Health and Hospital Association’s (MHA) Keystone Center honored Munson Healthcare Manistee Hospital’s Erin Warman with the quarterly MHA Keystone Center Speak-up! Award July 10.
The award acknowledges individuals or teams in MHA Keystone Center Patient Safety Organization (PSO) member hospitals who raise concerns about healthcare quality and safety and prevent potential harm to patients or staff.
Warman, a medical assistant working in Manistee Hospital’s provider offices, received the award for her persistence and dedication to speaking up on behalf of a patient. Warman identified a delay in medical treatment by family to a homebound patient and voiced her concerns to colleagues, senior leadership and the patient’s family.
“I simply did the right thing and spoke up for the best interests of my patient and the patient’s safety,” said Warman. “I felt comfortable speaking up because of our safety culture, and I’m happy that we avoided any harm to our patient.”
Ep. 35 What is the relationship between leading and lagging indicators?
Similarities between Economists and safety professionals. Definitions of performance measures. The researchers methods for this study. What the data showed about this particular organization. Errors in human reporting. Practical takeaways from the study.
Quotes:
“One definition of a performance measure or indicator should be…the metric used to measure the organization’s ability to control the risk of accidents.”
“There’s lots of things in nature that aren’t supposed to generate bell curves.”
“Safety is performed by humans, who react to the things that they see.”
These Detroit cultural institutions are reopening July 10: What to know
Other arts and cultural institutions including the Detroit Public Library, International Institute of Metropolitan Detroit, and the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit will have different re-opening dates but still participated in the process.
“We know that the long-term health and safety of our cultural institutions is currently tied to ensuring the health and safety of all visitors and staff,” says Susan Mosey, Executive Director of Midtown Detroit, Inc. “We engaged NSF to help us create a safety culture and protocols for managing the risks associated with a communicable disease while helping institutions deliver their core missions.”
ASSP Safety 2020 Virtual: Creating a Safety Culture with Diversity & Inclusion in Mind
Session speakers Lindsay Bell, Regional Health and Safety Manager at Solvay, and Abby Ferri, Co-Founder of Safety Justice League broke down not only what it means to be inclusive, but how to take safety issues and turn them into action items with the help of diverse employee voices who want to see change in the workplace.
First, Bell discussed what the words diversity, equality and inclusion mean. Though these words are normally lumped together, they do not share similar definitions and connotations. Diversity can be defined as, “Everyone is individual and different,” while equality can be defined as, “Everyone has equal access to opportunities.”
Inclusion however, is an all-encompassing word that Bell defined as, “a sense of belonging: feeling respected, valued for who you are; feeling a level of supportive energy and commitment from others so that you can do your best at work.”
“Inclusivity should be your goal,” Bell said. “You want your team to feel like they belong, like they are valued and that they are respected.”
The Dry Bulk Management Standard – equipping owners with a pathway for continuous improvement
When it comes to fostering organisational-wide safety improvements, culture is key. A robust safety culture means that practices, systems and procedures are followed and developed, even when they are not being scrutinised or evaluated. With many competing priorities, this might seem hard to properly pursue, so it is crucial that the right tools are on hand to help create a strong safety culture for dry bulk.
The Dry Bulk Management Standard (DBMS), which was launched as a draft, open for industry feedback in March 2020, represents a significant development as we look to improve safety across the entire dry bulk sector.
DBMS is based on deep collaboration amongst a representative cross-section of dry bulk owners, managers and risk management experts, all who have a common vision of a consistent culture of safety and improving standards across the entire dry bulk fleet.