Are you ready for Safe & Sound week 2020? It officially starts today August 10,2020. Use this special week to reaffirm your commitment to work safely every day.
2020 is Highway Transport’s 3rd Year Participating in OSHA Safe + Sound Week
Safe + Sound Week is a nationwide event held each August that recognizes the successes of workplace health and safety programs and offers information and ideas on how to keep America’s workers safe. Highway Transport managers coordinate with team members by focusing on a new topic each day. Everyone works to together to come up with ideas for improving our safety at all company locations. All employees are encouraged to participate and start by taking the Safe & Sound Safe at Work Pledge. This goes to every employee via Highway Transport’s Learning Management interface.
Take the Pledge. I Pledge to:
- Never compromise my own safety or the safety of my co-workers to get the job done
- Actively look for hazards, promptly report them and take appropriate action to warn others
- Be a good safety role model for my friends and family, even when off the job
Three factors that Make Safe & Sound Week 2020 a success for Highway Transport
- Management Leadership – Leading by example, by practicing safe behaviors and making safety part of daily conversations.
Managers Ask Themselves the Following Questions:
• If an employee makes you aware of a workplace hazard, do you immediately address the hazard, or do you tell them you will have to check on it later?
• Do you conduct regular inspections of all operations, equipment, work areas, and facilities? Do you let workers participate on the inspection team and talk to them about hazards that they discover?
• Do you get input from workers who may be able to suggest and evaluate solutions based on their knowledge? - Involving Everyone – Effective safety and health programs tap into workers’ collective experience, knowledge, and insight in order to find solutions to workplace safety and health challenges. To Effectively Control and Prevent Hazards, Employers Should
• Involve everyone
• Use the hierarchy of controls
• Have a hazard control plan
• Develop a hazard plan that protects workers during emergencies
• Evaluate and continuously re-evaluate the effectiveness of your existing safety controls - Finding & Fixing Hazards – At the core of every effective safety and health program is a systematic process for identifying and controlling (i.e., finding and fixing) workplace hazards.
2020 Safe and Sound Topics
Highway Transport kicks off Safe + Sound Week by focusing internally on our driving fleet and examining our Hazmat score. If a truck driver is pulling a hazmat load, there are 12 common infractions on Hazmat loads that all drivers should be mindful of…
1. Required placards and markings
2. Release of the HM from package
3. Shipping paper accessibility
4. DOT manhole securement
5. Manholes and valves are leak-free
6. ID number is visible
7. Vehicle is placarded as required
8. Correct ID number
9. Marking the manual remote shutoff device
10. Placard securely affixed/attached
11. Paperwork is provided
12. Accessibility of emergency response information
Pre-trip Inspection
Tuesday’s focus topic for drivers and general service personnel is vehicle maintenance and pre-trip inspections. At Highway Transport, Safety is not the most important thing. Safety is EVERYTHING. Be proactive and avoid violations by conducting a pre-and post trip inspection on your truck to find areas of concern that may need maintenance and repair. This is not only true in the tanker trucking world; it is a best practice for anyone who is a #truckdriver.
Check out this video clip of Tom during a routine pre-trip inspection…
Safety Culture
Wednesday’s topic for our Highway Transport drivers is unsafe driving. National Tank Truck Carriers provides meaningful insights about distracted driving. The Wednesday focus for our general service team is lock out policies. Whether on the road or in the shop, these issues are all preventable. Managers at each Highway Transport service center review the Safety Culture information with staff and discuss these specific topics. This is the perfect week to ask yourself… “Is the safety culture at my workplace weak, strong or somewhere in the middle?”
Fall Prevention and Protection
Thursday’s focus for Highway Transport drivers is on fall prevention, and our hours of service CSA score. The focus for general service employees in shops and tank is on fall protection. Please make sure you inspect retrieval devices and safety harnesses to make sure they are in proper working order and safe to use. For truck drivers, this may seem odd, but the safest way to get out of a semi is backward. Yes, exit the cab backward while maintaining 3 points of contact. Watch the video below as an example…
Safe + Sound Week During Coronavirus Pandemic
To say that coronavirus has had a big impact on trucking is an understatement. The vigilance of tanker truck drivers hauling bulk specialty chemicals by Highway Transport professional commercial driving standards has remained steadfast during the pandemic. Shops and tank wash personnel have remained steadfast in new protocols and face coverings. Throughout this time of COVID-19, due to the need for tanker truck loads of specialty chemicals, Highway Transport tanker trucking locations remained 100% operational. The company continuously monitored the impact of the virus on our network and implemented many driver precautions.
What is the Hierarchy of Controls?
Why Does Highway Transport Participate in Safe + Sound Week?
Successful safety and health programs help our company identify workplace hazards before they cause injury or illness. This special week helps us re-energize our safety efforts. It’s a chance for us to celebrate our safety successes. Look for Highway Transport safety scenes throughout Highway Transport social media. We use the hashtag #safeandsoundatwork.
Safe + Sound Week Results
Highway Transport’s general service team had no reported incidents all week! Great job by those folks. Drivers had a really good week, but we had one near miss reported at a customer location due to paperwork issues.
Internally, in Highway Transport professional development classes, employees study the Pyramid of Strategic Priorities.
As you can see, Employees and Safety are located on the top of the pyramid, because we all have a Moral Obligation to each other, our customers, and the motoring public to be safe 24/7.
Check out our participation certificate. This certificate is on display at each service center.
