Quite some time ago when I worked in the automated machine tool industry, we were required to take I think it was a day-long class called (if I recall correctly), “The Advantages Of Habitual Safety”.
The class focused not so much on individual safety rules, but rather how important it is to practice and to reinforce safety “habits”. The basic gist of the class was that you practice safe operating procedures at all times even when in a particular instance or situation it may seem silly or redundant.
For an example, they provided a video that talked about a real-life repair technician who was, in the case shown, replacing a handle on the discharge shield of a horizontal boring machine. The machine was completely idle, no stock material was in the enclosure, the entire manufacturing cell controller was in HALTED mode (so no parts were moving anywhere in that cell), and he didn’t even have to lift the shield to replace the handle.
But he nevertheless unplugged the machine from the power, not because he thought some bug in the cell controller’s software would somehow restart the line or some mouse in the machine would lean on the START button and jam some stock in the spindle, but because he was reinforcing a good safety habit.
That repairman hadn’t sustained a single on-the-job injury in 11 years of employment.
It was probably the most useful class I’ve taken since I graduated from college and a darn sight more valuable than most of the BS I had to take for classes to get a 4-year degree. The idea they drummed into our heads was that developing and reinforcing safe-practice habits is something that should be done at every opportunity. If someone thinks it’s comical or paranoid because it looks like you believe the machine is possessed or you’re the obsessive-compulsive type, then good for you because you’re going to save yourself
We don’t call them “habit classes” although that might be a more fitting name for safety refresher courses as the purpose of these courses is to ensure that safety is always top of mind. Looking back on my own career in the transportation industry I find that so many incidents/accidents were due to poor habits…and not due to lack of knowledge. One really common accident involved people improperly mounting/dismounting equipment…so many injuries are caused every year by people who jump from instead of carefully stepping down from equipment. A few years back a woodchip hauler was killed during…of all things…his pretrip inspection…He had the engine running and had stuck his head in to inspect when a small woodchip flew into his eye and then into his brain…killing him instantly. He should have worn safety glasses but he was ripping and tearing to get going and that’s what happened. Habit classes are a great idea…knowledge when not supported by habit is pretty much useless.
Good habits are just as hard to break as bad habits. You just have to work at it until the habit developes, after that it will be something you do automaticaly. (sp?)
One can’t be too careful…I’ve personally seen mundane everyday events turn to tragedy because someone wasn’t careful for just a second. Apart from education and hammering home safe work habits…it is incumbent upon managment to set the work “pace”…When I first started in transportation (on a loading dock) I took pride in my ability to strip a container/trailer faster than anyone else… It was something the management took note of… But over time this frenetic work pace led to injuries and one death. These days I advocate a slow and deliberate pace…and if any one function is done faster than it should be I’m not happy about it…I’m concerned…because I know that shortcuts were taken and that safety was compromised.
For the last 4 years I’ve been in medical device software development. As one might assume, there’s literally a myriad of processes, standard-operating-procedures, department-operating-procedures, etc., etc. that have to be adhered-to and you have to be trained on to satisfy FDA mandates.
As only part of those procedures, it’s required that any new software-related file (code file, configuration file, detailed design document, test script, whatever) has to be peer-reviewed. That means you get a group of engineers together and they pour-over the file(s) and identify any issues, and you have to resolve all those issues before it can be “baselined” or officially blessed for inclusion in the final product.
You’re supposed to allow “adequate time” for peer-review participants to review the materials before the meeting. It’s happened several times where people approach me to be a reviewer and I get one day to do it before the meeting. I refuse every such request because more time is needed. So they go off and find some other person who will do it in a day or less, rather than providing more time.
That practice is wrong, it’s unsafe in terms of the thoroughness of the reviews, and it’s another shortcut like Ulrich described only in a different setting. As much as I don’t trust upper-management I made a stink about it up the chain that process shouldn’t be trumped by schedules. We’ll see if it does any good.
I hope your “stink” helps. Personally, I’d be careful about what I poured over the files if I thought they should be approved.
It’s early–I didn’t spend much time poring over this.
We get a couple of Rules of the Day in the morning–I dutifully write them down, but there’s little discussion because it either doesn’t pertain to me or it’s just too much common sense. I agree with our hardened railroader that some of what they come up with is ridiculous–knee-jerk reactions to freak occurrences without giving much thought to the consequences. Then they “say” that something is OK to do. I really hate it when what “they” say is different from what “they” write.
Had a Trainmaster tell me that “kicking” cars was going to be allowed under certain circumstances, in certain areas to allow us to gain a little extra time while switching… Our General Orders, Special Instructions, etc, all have provisions that say this is not allowed. The company official knowing that, openly told us it’s “okay” to do.
First, the assumption is that the railroads care about safety. The rules seem to be there as punishment rather than a best practice. I have seen even in my short career trainmasters knowingly allow crews to violate rules to get a train over the road, while failing another crew for the same rules violation.
I’m not trying to make light of safety just that the railroads talk big, but rarely do anything to encourage safety. The railroads are very reactive to safety, and in a job as dangerous as the railroad, being proactive would seem to be a much better way to go.
There’s a reason the old heads say “Kid, these rule are written in blood.”
Most make sense. Some are so hopelessly out of date you have to laugh. Some are so ludicrously complex it makes your head hurt. And there are some that are so ridiculous you wonder who actually wrote the garbage.
There’s a saying among the front line employees, “If you followed every rule, all the time, you’d never move one car.”
That said, for the most part my area has tried to foster an atmosphere of common sense safety.
The company I work for falls under the Mine Safety and Health Administration. While most of the rules I can agree with but when an MSHA inspector pays a visit the rules seem to change. We got a fine for having no cover on a trash can in the break room. How is that a severe safety hazard? My service truck was inspected twice in one day by the same inspector. The second time it was fined for not having 2 chock blocks made of rubber. One was an old metal chock and one was rubber. The ground cable on the welder had a bare spot about a 1/2 inch long where it attaches to the ground clamp and got a $300 fine and placed out of service. Should I mention the ground clamp is all uninsulated metal! The truck did not get a fine for the broken windshield. In the mining industry MSHA is only there to make revenue for the government. One loader operator got fined for an unsecured lunch box in his cab. $100 for that. The biggest was $10,000 fine for no life boat for a drainage pond that’s only 2 feet deep.
There is safe and there is stupid. You cant regulate stupid but the government keeps trying. The latest thing is fall protection. We now have to wear so much gear it gets tangled and caught on everything just getting to the job. If I am working 6 feet above the ground I have to wear a harness and arresting gear. That means just about every job I do. I can understand 20 or 30 feet needing the gear but 6 feet is just stupid. The arresting lanyard is 10 feet. I really feel protected having all those straps and ropes hanging around a running diesel engine.
I like the military assumption that everyone is as dumb as a box of rocks and 10% of the people won’t “get the word”.
That’s why they paint an arrow pointing at the door handle and stencil “Open here”. That’s why the tire pressure is stenciled over the wheel well. That’s why before going into a dangerous environment to do maintenance, the technician turns off the power and puts a big red tag on the power switch and why anyone other than the man who put it there will be court Marshalled for removing it.
I would like to ask the opinion of my brothers/sisters, railfans and whoever might read this about a situation.
My station has recently surpassed 1 year without a lost-time injury. This is great as it has never happened before in my station, but it kind of leaves a bad taste in my mouth because of an incident that happened about 2 weeks before our 1 year anniversary.
My coworker had slipped and twisted his ankle. It was quite a bad sprain as his ankle blew up the size of a baseball. I was not there at the time of the accident, but I did speak with this coworker and he showed me the pictures of his ankle from his blackberry.
Since this incident occured so close to the 1 year anniversary of our previous injury, management instructed this employee to continue to show up for work. He was told to sit on the locomotive and do nothing and that an extra employee would be called from the spareboard to fill his spot until his ankle healed enough that he could continue with his normal duties.
This is not the first time this type of situation has occured.
To me it just doesn’t taste right. Yes, some people fake injuries and we need to stop that. However, some injuries are real and they shouldn’t be covered up.
What do you think? Did we really have 1 year without a lost time injury or was there a cover up?
Around the time I was born, (1956) my father was working in a meat packing plant and suffered a broken leg when a side of beef came off the railing and landed on him. It was late in the year and there had been several accidents already, and they were afraid their insurance would go up.
So for six weeks, Dad sat in a little used storage room, throwing washers into a five gallon bucket eight hours a day at full pay.
It made him a shark at horseshoes and lawn darts for the rest of his life.
Totally wrong. He was injured and unable to perform his job and thus should have bee relieved from duty. And his injury should have been recorded. Aside from putting the injured man at further risk, by deciding to do what they did, management sent out a clear message to all staff: it is okay to cheat and be dishonest in order to obtain a desired result. Whoever made that call in management needs to be outed and fired.