How To Prevent Injuries On Your Construction Site
When you work with construction equipment on a worksite, the safety of all employees is the most important priority. Construction equipment makes work much faster, easier and more efficient, but it has to be used with extreme care. If you’re a foreman who is responsible for a crew of workers, you have to do what you can to prevent injuries and accidents due to unsafe working conditions and misuse of construction equipment.
Bobcat of Buffalo, located in Lockport, is your western New York construction equipment dealer. Here are some ways that you can ensure that your construction site is a safe place for all of your workers at all times.
1. Train Workers Often
If you’re the manager of your worksite, then the responsibility falls upon you to ensure that every worker is trained on every piece of construction equipment they will use. An owner’s manual or presentation is a good start, but the true test of knowledge is hands-on experience. Letting your workers use equipment under your supervision will help them to retain information and learn where they are making mistakes before they actually operate the equipment on the worksite. When you hire new employees, have your experienced workers monitor how they use the equipment and give them assistance where needed.
Your equipment training sessions need to include where on and off switches are located, including kill switches and safety overrides; how the machine should be mounted or entered; what the features and attachments for that equipment are and how the equipment should be used. Perform regular refresher courses to make sure everyone is up to speed and any time a new piece of construction equipment is introduced to the worksite, train every worker on its usage.
2. Employ Safety Gear
Construction equipment usage requires that all employees wear heavy-duty safety gear to keep their bodies protected. Workers should wear steel-toed boots, thick gloves, hard hats, safety goggles and protective outerwear made of durable materials. Long hair should be tied up and out of the way and clothing should not have any loose cords or strings that could catch on equipment. Fluorescent orange or yellow safety vests are a good idea for all workers to wear so that they are easily seen by machine operators and other employees.
3. Create a Safe Working Environment
When you manage a worksite, you need to do everything you can to minimize the risk of injury. If the workspace is compromised or neglected, safety issues can crop up that result in serious accidents, costing you and your employees a great deal.
Remove any debris promptly and keep equipment that is not in use stored and out of the way. Tape over cords that have to pass through walking areas. Do not permit people to leave tools out or plugged in when not in use. Walk through the worksite each day to make sure that everything is in order. IF there has been rain, mark puddles and slippery surfaces with clapboards.
For workers who are on high walkways or using equipment that has a high cab, install guardrails and canopy structures to catch them. Test these measures for strength and durability. To ensure that all workers can see clearly, even when it’s dark, employ brilliant floodlights and spotlights as well as lights on hard hats to keep the workspace illuminated.
If you’re looking for a new piece of construction equipment, visit our dealership in Lockport, NY, today to take a look at our full stock of new and used construction equipment for sale. You can even discuss financing options with our friendly staff if you’d like to make use of them to fund your construction equipment purchase. Bobcat of Buffalo proudly serves the greater Buffalo metropolitan area as well as the city of Amherst, NY.