Safety on the mine site

Safety?

What does the word safety mean to you and your workplace at the moment?

Not getting run over by a 200 ton truck!

And before you watch no one was hurt in the making of these videos.

 

If driving your own vehicle into the pit please make sure you give way to anything that is bigger then you. An example of these machines are large trucks with some as large as 400ton, Scrapers, Graders, Bulldozers and Water Trucks. Just because you can see the large machine doesn’t mean that the operator of the machine can see you. With a truck larger than 150ton the blind spots extend out to more than 15 meters, if you come inside of that area then you are in the trucks blind spot and this is a very dangerous place to be. Every month around the world somewhere a LV or light vehicle ute is run over by one of these large machines in the pit. Always give way to anything bigger than you.

The dictionary describes safety as:

The condition of being safe,

Denoting something designed to prevent injury or damage.

How do these meanings apply to the workplace?

We now have safety guards on machines and people with degrees all helping us to be safe. These things only get you so far. It is the skill of the workers in the workplace, the better trained the work force is, the safer the workforce will be in the work place, simple as that. An example of this is when being transported, a Ute or light vehicle should be in low range and not use more than 3rd gear because if you are in 3rd gear going down a 1 in 7 decline then the Ute will pull itself up as long as you take your foot off the accelerator. Using any gears higher or using the higher range four wheel drive setting other than the low range setting the Ute or vehicle will need brakes to pull it up. This is when incidents happen. Always follow the onsite rules.