Nobody likes danger, especially to one’s life in any scenario. Growing up, you are always informed to look out while crossing the road. Your car usually has all the safety equipment such as the airbags and seat belts, yet they tell you in the driving training on how to drive safely. In laboratories, we have lab coats, masks, and gloves to keep the workers safe from harmful chemicals. Hell! We don’t have to go that far as we all have been wearing masks, latex gloves, using sanitizers, washing hands, and observing social distancing during the pandemic just for our safety. It is essential to follow such precautions because there is nothing more precious than human life. All the other things, such as cars, homes, and other personal possessions, are replaceable, but one thing isn’t; human life.
As we have noticed, certain situations are more prone to danger than others. Mostly, when you are dealing with heavy or sharp objects, you must be careful, or you could get hurt. We cannot think of any better example of such a situation than a construction site. Engineers, managers, workers, or anyone around such sites should understand the consequences of not being careful. Though these people are qualified professionals and have learned these things, they are always told about the safety measures time and again. If you are wondering about these safety measures, we will enlist some of them to get a fair idea.
Wear Your PPE
We all have heard the abbreviation “Personal protective equipment” more than we would have liked in the last few months. Every worksite that has the danger of getting hurt has its specified protective equipment that the people working there must wear. For a construction worker, it might include glasses with side shields, helmets, and safety boots. It mostly depends on the kind of danger you are facing. Wearing protective equipment at the construction site should be mandatory for anyone who is in the close vicinity.
In any work line, when hiring someone for the job, you ensure that they have all the necessary information. The same applies to a construction site where you should conduct and induce anyone who works there or a visitor, as researchers recommend. Induction is a kind of training in which you inform the inductee about everything going on at the site. You also tell them about the possible dangers they could face after entering the site. Every site has a unique induction as no two sites are the same ever, so even the skilled and experienced workers should be appropriately inducted to the site.
Keep It Tidy
Construction is the process of building infrastructure. If you have ever been to a construction site, you would know that there is always an excessive residual material or junk. This could be anything from the soil which came from digging a hole for the foundation, or shrapnel from cutting different materials. Any such thing could be hazardous to the workers and the managers of the construction site. The best way to reduce the danger is to keep the whole place tidy. If you do not have a dumping place yet, you could designate a place somewhere in the corner, out of reach of everyone for dumping such things.
Follow Safety Signs And Procedures
We should always go to the basics when it comes to safety. Just like you do not cross the road when the traffic light is green, you should follow all the safety signs installed. Though to follow these signs, you would first have to install them in the right places. Placing these signs is one of the first steps toward construction site safety. The workers and the engineers understand safety procedures, but sometimes they forget following these precautions in the middle of the work. These signs would continuously remind them about how to keep themselves safe.
Do Not Work In An Unsafe Environment
Whether you are a business manager or a worker, you should ensure that nobody works in an unsafe environment. Usually, when you work at heights, you must have all the safety belts and other equipment, without which it would be too dangerous to get any work done. According to HSE statistics, 14% of the human loss at a construction site occurred due to something collapsing and overturning while 11% from being struck by moving vehicles. Such statistics are a stark reminder of how we should always avoid dangerous work environments.
Sometimes a worker might have a near-miss event at the site, which might not cause much harm. Such activities are usually are an indication of an unsafe work environment, and managers should encourage the workers to report such events even if no loss occurred. Such reporting will help the managers in ensuring that whatever caused such an event could be avoided. It is a precautionary measure against any potential future dangerous events.
Do Not Tamper With Equipment
Whenever you have a task in the whole project, you should always get the right equipment that is also safe to use. There might be times when you might not have the right equipment at the site, and in such instances, workers might try to improvise. Tampering equipment to use it for purposes it wasn’t made for, might be dangerous to everyone’s safety. Managers should encourage workers to report the unavailability of the right equipment so that they can arrange it.
Safety is one of the essential aspects of our lives, and at places where we are more vulnerable, we take extra precautions. A construction site is where people could hurt themselves due to the prevalence of heavy and sharp objects. The managers, workers, and engineers should ensure everyone’s safety by following the safety guidelines. Without such an effort, they would be putting each other’s lives in danger.