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How much time do you spend training your landscape construction/maintenance crews in work zone safety? Do you send them out to the job with cones and other traffic control barriers but fail to talk with them each day about what else they must do to remain safe? 

Work-zone safety is gaining increasing attention from OSHA, due to the high number of motor-vehicle-related fatalities in work zones each year. According to the National Work Zone Safety Information Clearinghouse, 919 reported motor-vehicle-related fatalities occurred in construction/maintenance work zones in 2003. In the southeastern part of the country alone, OSHA reported 284 “struck by” fatalities from October 2001 through August 10, 2004 — most or all of which were preventable.

“One area of our focus this year is landscape contractors and their employees,” says Teresa Harrison, OSHA’s deputy director for the Southeast. “One of the most important tools in reducing fatalities in this industry is the use of high visibility vests.” Harrison believes all of the 112 reported “struck by” fatalities in her region of the country during fiscal year 2004 could have been prevented.

High Visibility Vests Are Not Enough

John Rovedo, senior safety manager at American Civil Constructors, Inc., says that the use of high visibility reflective vests, hard hats, and safety glasses are critical for crews “working within 10 feet of any active road. Cones or barrels, warning signs, and other motor vehicle traffic barriers are also important.” But even all of that, Rovedo believes, is not enough.

“Generally, the biggest thing with the landscape industry is paying attention to what’s going on and where you are. You need to keep in mind the equipment and the traffic that is going on inside the work zone,” he says. Workers, he adds, often get “tunnel vision” and are not cognizant of what is going on around them. “You need to pay attention not just to your specific task,” he says.

To reduce serious injuries and fatalities among work-zone landscape construction/maintenance crews, Rovedo suggests the following:

· Set up a 10–15 minute safety meeting every morning.  Do this as soon as your crews arrive at the work-zone job site. “Say to them: This is our target today, and these are the inherent hazards of each task. This gets their minds centered on what to look out for,” Rovedo says.

· ALWAYS make eye contact with equipment operators. Do this any time you cross in front of them or behind them. Remember that they might not automatically see you.

· Get your crew members to lead your safety meetings. “I don’t like the supervisors to lead them. We assign many of the hourly guys to this task. This gets those people buying into the fact that they’re more important than the supervisor — they know best what the hazards are,” Rovedo says.

· Use sign-off sheets. “Have them sign off on whatever equipment they’re operating — make sure all your people are trained in the safe way to start it, operate it, shut it down, and refuel it,” he says.

The Colorado Work Zone Best Practices Safety Guide has these additional work-zone safety tips:

· Provide good quality vests for all workers exposed to traffic.
· Provide hard hats for all workers.
· Make sure vests and hard hats are reflectorized at night.
· Use reflective tape on vehicles and equipment at night.
· Have revolving amber lights on vehicles/equipment at night.
· Make sure there is safe access for workers and vehicles.
· Post warning signs for workers and at vehicle/equipment entrances.
· Use an escort vehicle for slow-moving equipment in traffic.

1/05

By Barbara Mulhern, ALCA Safety Specialist