What does OSHA do with accident reports other than issue fines? Among other things, OSHA actually trends the meta data. Annually, OSHA releases a report that ranks accidents and injuries by type and cause.
In addition to knowing that X% of workers died from electrocution in a given year, we know how many of which behaviors led to the electrocutions. As it turns out, five behaviors keep showing up in the OSHA data.
Here are two of them:
- Rushing. You may have heard the expression, “There’s never enough time to do it right, but always enough time to do it over.” The problem with safety is you don’t get a do-over. Take your time to plan the job properly and follow the work procedures.
- Failing to verify. Locking out a breaker may not de-energize the circuit you’re working on. It could be the wrong breaker, or the circuit might be backfed. Use a meter to verify.
We’ll cover more, in Part 2.
