Education

Safety at the construction sites

Preface
Life is the precious gift bestowed by the lord to mankind and is provided to humans only once. It should be taken care of to a deep level. Therefore, an important term comes into play. Safety proves heavy significance in everybody’s life. It is our responsibility to consider safety as an important parameter.

In terms of technology as well where we need to go on-site, that is the field upon where the actual work is being done, safety lies a key aspect in everyone’s life.

But as civil engineering, one of the oldest branches of engineering after military engineering, the significance of safety increases tremendously. Various civil engineering online courses are available in the civil era which you can avail at an affordable rate.

In civil engineering as well, we need to go on-site to fulfill the required work assigned to complete the project. Being a Civil engineer, your responsibility is not first hand. But still, every staff including the chief engineer should know the essential safety rules of going on-site.

Importance of safety
Now we shall be looking at the importance of safety at the construction sites. Have a look.

  1. Safety reduces the risk of injuries to the public and reduces the work-related accidents that happen commonly on-site for which every worker needs to be careful.
  2. It also lower illness cost that may occur due to several accidents taking place on-site.
  3. On a construction site, workers works in a high-risk environment where several electric hazards might take place. There might be the risk of construction machinery.
  4. Even if the accident does not occur, still an unsafe workspace is the risk. So, the following safety parameter can help in reducing the risk of accidents to a considerable level. That will help in maintaining a healthy environment at the site.

Vital stats related to safety
Above are the importance of safety in our everyday life during on-site construction. Let us now discuss some of the stats related to safety on the construction site.

  1. Approximately one out of four construction workers did not renew their health insurance in 2018.
  2. There are more fatalities in the United States and European Union on construction sites than any other occupation.
  3. In South Africa, there is an average of 150 fatalities and 400 injuries every year at the construction site.
  4. The leading safety hazards on construction sites include falls, electrocutions, and being struck by traffic. Motor Vehicle crashing being another safety hazard on construction sites.

How to prevent accidents
Such is the injury and fatality rate in the world. Also, some of the key parameters about on-site accidents. Now we shall be looking at the ways to prevent the accidents at the sites where construction is been taking place.

  1. Always ensure proper Personal Protection Equipment on site where you are working. Some of the basic and necessary PPEs must for construction workers are a hard hat, rubber boot, safety vest, and safety gloves.
  2. The hard hat is used to save your head against any falling objects. Also, a hard hat is used to protect your head against low heights scenarios. But before that, always ensured that it is in good condition.
  3. The rubber boot is used to protect your feet against wet and slippery constructional floors.
  4. Sometimes, due to air pollution occurring severally as the result of fumes and smokes coming out from the various toxic zones on-site. To protect your body from such circumstances, safety vests are generally worn to ensure proper safety and regulations.
  5. Safety gloves are used to protect your hands while it gets in contact with the material. These materials are highly toxic.
  6. Awareness and educating every employee of the site construction is the major responsibility of the EHS officer. Therefore, safety training should be undertaken on every construction site, so that every staff gets educated on every safety feature. They should also be aware of all kinds of danger on the ground.
  7. Sites preparation should be done that includes removing debris, leveling the floor, cutting tree roots, marking gas, water, and electric pipelines.
  8. Fall protection should be provided by the guardrail system, personal fall arrest system, positioning device systems, and warning line systems. Make sure that the ladders should be long enough to reach the work area to prevent any injury.

You should know how to evacuate yourself during various severe conditions. As in the case of fire being taking place due to inflammable chemicals being used in wet concrete, the best way is to know how to escape from the fire.

  1. There should be such areas at the site where there should be the restriction to enter. The access should only be given to the designated authority. Such areas include warehouses and high-risk environments.
  2. There should also be a direction sign for everything. Use clear signs to indicate the hazardous circumstances. The direction board should show with the 24-hour emergency number written on it. The reason being, in any case, any emergency might occur then the going through the designated number, staffs can contact and easily evacuate from the safety.
  3. Heavy pieces of machinery or heavy vehicles should have separate entry and exit points to strengthen enhanced pedestrian safety.
  4. First-aid kits should be available at all accessible points at the construction site. Not only this, a separate doctor should be designated that can check the person during severe injuries and accidents.
  5. Take care of the electricity aspect at the constructional site as in US one out four workers die of electrocution as fatalities.
  6. The foremost thing to consider is to know the accessibility of all the safety equipment at the construction site. So that during an emergency, each worker should have the accessibility to every piece of safety equipment.

Lastly, for the workers working at extreme heights, safety harnesses should be provided to them. Also, it is not about that single parameter, rather safety harnesses should be worn for the low heights as well.

Final say
Therefore, to conclude the entire content, in short, safety has a major role to play in the overall development of the company. On-site is somehow owned by the brand. So, always follow the above norms and you can save any person. But don’t forget to visit civil where you will get the vital updates related to civil engineering online courses Have a great day.


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