High Risk Area Safety
A workshop is typically a space occupied by vehicles, heavy mobile machinery and pedestrians.
This immediately presents potential safety hazards such as poor visibility or lack of space, plus human factors such as lapses in attention/ judgement or staff ignoring safety protocols.
As a result, safe operation and storage of goods has to be the #1 priority. Introducing safety initiatives or additional safety training can help lower the risks, but still the danger is a real one.
The most common safety hazards in Australian workshops are:
Forklift related incidents (collisions, tipping etc.)
Pedestrian accidents
Lack of guards/ screens around dangerous equipment
Lack of adequate ventilation
cluttered work stations
confined spaces
trailing / exposed wires and cables
electric shocks
Incorrect storage of flammable/ dangerous substances
Forklift related incidents (collisions, tipping etc.)
Pedestrian accidents
Lack of guards/ screens around dangerous equipment
Lack of adequate ventilation
cluttered work stations
confined spaces
trailing / exposed wires and cables
electric shocks
Incorrect storage of flammable/ dangerous substances
Are these risks you can afford?
Load-shifting equipment (powered mobile plant like trucks, forklifts, ride-on pallet movers, pallet jacks, trolleys etc.) present pedestrian safety risks such as:
- Collisions with pedestrians
- Rollovers and the equipment moving unexpectedly, posing a crushing risk
- Vehicles being unable to stop quickly
- Reduced visibility when loading/ reversing.
You can consider the space/ layout of your workshop and put physical barriers in place to separate pedestrians and vehicles, and include control measures to reduce risk such as:
- Minimising the cross flow of traffic, intersections and eliminating blind spots.
- Clearly marking pedestrian walkways or using temporary physical barriers to separate pedestrians from roadways and powered mobile plant operating areas where pedestrians and vehicles often interact based on speed limits, stopping distances and efficient workflow.
- Defining areas where powered mobile plant is used as ‘pedestrian exclusion zones’ and excluding powered mobile plant from pedestrian walkways and work areas.
Initiatives such as painted line markings and verbal/ written notices to stay a certain distance clear of vehicles and mobile machinery are only effective so long as your staff and site visitors abide by these directions.
Regardless of your industry, there are also legal obligations to uphold worker safety.
With these daily risks ever present, could your workshop use a BodyGuard?
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