Construction accidents are prevalent on worksites, but they can be avoided. These sites have several machines and safety risks that lead to these accidents and injuries. Aside from delaying the completion of the project, construction accidents can also cause stress and a lot of money. If you’re the contractor of the project, you’ll end up paying for the hospitalization bills of the injured employee. You’ll also have to go through the stress of explaining the situation to your clients and provide guarantees that you can still complete the project.
The equipment, trucks, construction materials and various people going about with their activities simultaneously add up to the risk. The more complex the construction project is, the more susceptible the workers are to accidents and injuries.
With proper strategies put in place, it becomes easier to prevent construction accidents and ensure that the probability of one getting injured is minimised. There are actually many ways on how you can prevent construction accidents—and most of these strategies don’t require thousands of dollars or years of experience to implement. As long as they’re practiced regularly, these tips are enough to save the lives of the construction workers and ensure that the project meets its deadline.
Read on for some tips on how to create a safe work environment.
Safety Meetings
You need to enlighten the people working on a site regarding safety control measures. All job sites have different types of risks, and the people working there should be aware of them.
Note that the risks continue to change as the project advances and adjustments need to be made.
The project managers and supervisors should hold regular safety meetings to inform the workers of these impending risks and ensure that they are on the same page.
Employees should understand the importance of these safety measures since accidents can jeopardize the safety of many people working on the site and the project at large.
Ideally, you should never allow employees to stay on site if they have never participated in these safety meetings. These meeting are vital as these should inform all workers about how they should behave and work on-site.
Safety Gear
Safety meetings help to keep workers alert, but in some cases, these accidents are inevitable.
This way, they should always be prepared by wearing the right gear needed for them to do the job.
Safety gear ranges from overalls, helmets, safety boots and reflective clothing among others depending on the nature of the job.
All this protective gear should be industry approved to protect the person in case of an accident as substandard gear can jeopardize the safety of the individual.
As a contractor, you should never allow workers to stay on the construction site if they’re not wearing the necessary safety gear. Aside from knowing what to wear, all workers should also know the purpose of their safety gear and how they can use these properly.
Minimise Night Work
Light is essential for any worksite so try to minimise night work.
While you can use artificial lighting to enable people to work at night, this does not match the natural light during the day, and it is easy to miss something that will lead to an accident.
If you have to work at night, limit it to the less risky parts of the projects where the safety concerns are not all that much of a concern. If possible, assign workers in safe areas at night. Avoid putting them in high or risky areas as this can increase the possibility of them encountering accidents and injuries.
Take advantage of the daylight and do most of the work during this time.
Regular Breaks
People working on a site are human, and they get tired after working for long hours. Regardless of how experienced your workers are, don’t expect that they can work effectively 24/7. As mentioned, they are still human beings and will still need at least eight hours of sleep every night to function better.
Do not force people to go beyond their limits as they can quickly lose their concentration when they are exhausted. Don’t require your workers to work more than eight hours every single day.
Enforce regular brakes as a way of increasing worker productivity and improving site safety. This keeps them fresh and alert to any potential dangers in the workplace.
Proper Labeling
Worksites always have new structures that need to be labelled to avoid accidents.
Use proper signage like those sold from this website to indicate potential dangers such as high voltage areas and electric lines among others.
Such areas should be barricaded using pylons to prevent unauthorised people from accessing them.
Simple signs such as red ones labelled danger are enough to remind a worker of the impending risk when they are working in that area.
In Conclusion
Some of the tips for preventing construction accidents have been mentioned above, and while others might not be directly related to construction, they go a long way to enhancing workplace safety.
You need to enforce healthy eating at a job site and provide hydrating options rather than carbonated sodas and energy drinks.
Try to also avoid sun exposure when working as this can lead to fatigue and lack of concentration during work.
The people working on site are at the centre of all the action and they need to be in the best physical and mental condition if they are to work safely. This way, sloppy mistakes caused by concentration lapses will be avoided and so will be construction accidents. For all your scaffolding needs that ensures safety of workers, check out Skelscaff, one of the most reliable scaffolding companies in Australia.
