ZERO TOLERANCE!

Canada appears to be stepping up its efforts to prevent fatalities from falls. Recently companies have been fined quite severely in Canada for accidents and for infractions of safety regulations. The great news is the Pro-Active approach to prevention and protection - saving lives.
Here in the USA we suffer from

Father's Fatal Fall

Wearing harness but not tied in to an anchor ...

DAD'S DEATH FALL
TRAGEDY IN HARLEM FOR BELOVED HARDHAT

By ERIK SHILLING and BILL SANDERSON

Posted: 3:47 am September 12, 2008 at New York Post

A construction worker described by his sobbing wife as "the support of his family" plunged four stories to his death yesterday when one end of his suspended-platform scaffold gave way from a Harlem building, authorities said.
Miguel Rodriguez's widow and 7-year-old son, Kevin, wept and hugged one another at the spot where he died yesterday afternoon.
"He was there for his son," said Berta Rodriguez, 40. "He was the support of the family. I stayed and took care of the kids, and he'd go out to work every day."
Miguel, 38, leaves another son, who is 17.
The Ecuadorian immigrant was wearing a safety harness, but it was not secured to anything that could have prevented his plunge from the fifth story of 266 W. 111th St. to a sidewalk shed four stories below, authorities said.
Officials weren't sure yesterday why the

News from the Bureau of Labor Statistics

The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), Bureau of Labor Statistics has just released its August 20, 2008 Report for 2007.

Since 1992 the fatal falls stat has increased 39% to 835, from 600. See the green trend-line in the chart, taken from the DOL BLS 2007 report.

This in spite of new and improved OSHA regulations and industry concensus standards such as the I-14.1-2001, not to mention most construction firms now have the new post of "Safety Director" to create safety manuals, monitor practices on site, prevent accidents before they happen. Unfortunately, there aren't enough OSHA inspectors for all the

Fatal Falls in 2007 Sets a Record! (not good)

At the "pump handle", Christina Morgan writes there were 835 fatal falls in 2007, and, each and every one of them were (or should have been ) preventable... and the workers whose lives are literally hanging on the line everyday have come to the sad disposition that they have to live with these circumstances - that coming home to their families at the end of the day is a statistical probability, but not an absolute.

Please read here ---> http://thepumphandle.wordpress.com/2008/09/08/this-happens/