I am often asked about the benefits of wearing rubber sleeves. Personally, I never had to wear them as an apprentice or a lineman because of my former employer’s belief that an insulate-and-isolate program was the best way to go. Even today, the company that employed me for over 40 years does not require lineworkers […]

Q: How do consensus standards apply to the employer responsibility for safe work practices? Are they absolute? A: No, consensus standards are part of a system the employer can use to develop their safety programs. The issue is, can the employer defend their programs that do or do not conform to the consensus standards? Compliance […]

Given the predictable nature of hazards, how and why do incidents occur? Think about this: If I know the winning numbers ahead of a lottery drawing, it’s simple for me to be 100% successful at winning the lottery money. So, if we know how hazards are going to act and how they cause harm, why […]

Last year, Incident Prevention published an article by Altec’s Phil Doud regarding changes to the ANSI A92.2 standard regarding vehicle-mounted elevating and rotating aerial devices (see https://incident-prevention.com/blog/ansi-a92-2-2022-changes-and-training-requirements/). It is a good and timely article. In it, Mr. Doud points out that many of the training requirements in the revised 2021 edition of the standard were […]