Safety Alert As Fatalities Climb
Wednesday, July 3, 2013 @ 11:50 AM
Prince George, BC. – The BC Forest Safety Council has issued a Safety Alert in the wake of an unusually high number of fatalities in the forestry sector.
There have been 6 fatalities in the forestry sector so far this year, a further three deaths were of members of the public or another industry but involved equipment from the forestry sector.
The BC Forest Safety Council says the common factor in all of the incidents is that they involved mobile equipment or log trucks.
“We have become too complacent” says the Central Interior Logging Association’s MaryAnne Arcand “It’s not unlike knowing you have to lose 40 pounds, and once you lose 20, you say, well, at least I lost 20 and return to old habits.”
Arcand says there may be no single reason why these deaths have occurred but says clearly safety messages have to be reinforced. “It may be there aren’t as many supervisors on site, as many are retiring and there aren’t as many experienced people to move up the ranks.” She says too often workers adopt a practice that was never safe to begin with, but it was the way they had done things for a long time, “That was more a case of good luck than good management” and eventually their luck ran out.
Two of the forestry fatalities were the result of equipment roll-overs, and all three fatalities involving the general public were the result of crash with a logging truck.
“We know the number of crashes with industry trucks is creeping up” says Arcand “Our stats show that in 86% of the cases where there has been a crash between a private vehicle and a commercial truck, it is the private vehicle’s fault. We are going to have to step up our efforts to remind everyone to share the road.”
She says with forestry now recruiting people to the area, just as the mining industry, there are a lot of people who are new to the region, who may not be aware of all the safety protocols put in place in order to make it safe.
“Everybody needs to pay attention” says Arcand, “Unsafe is still Unacceptable. Just because we got the numbers down from where they were (40 deaths in 2005) doesn’t mean that work stops, and we’ve seen that evidenced by the creeping up ( of fatalities) we’ve gotten too complacent. Anytime we make a significant improvement, which we did , we start saying well at least its better than it was. But we still need to get zero.”
Arcand says the impact on families is heart wrenching “I know that in each of these cases, the family got a knock on the door from the RCMP who told them the husband, father, brother, son, or grandpa wasn’t coming home and that is unacceptable.”
Comments
“Just because we got the numbers down from where they were (40 deaths in 2005) doesnât mean that work stops, and weâve seen that evidenced by the creeping up ( of fatalities) weâve gotten too complacent. Anytime we make a significant improvement, which we did , we start saying well at least its better than it was. But we still need to get zero.â
I think the single biggest reason is that the reduction of Forest worker fatalities over this timeframe had a lot more to do with an experienced workforce and very little to do with any significant safety reforms. Perhaps a reason for the increase in fatalities could be that the ageing experienced workforce is diminishing and are being replaced with new greener workers.
I have hauled logs for 30 years and the same requirements are needed to haul a load have remained, a pulse and a class 1 licence. No driver training, no drug testing, no road maintenance standards, have ever changed over that time. Not once in 30 years has anyone ever asked me when I arrived at a Mill whether or not I had ever hauled a load of logs before the one I had just arrived with.
As the experienced workers retire from the industry and are replaced with inexperience and the move towards shortlogs with the added riggin being dragged to the bush on roads that have had little to no improvements in 30 years, look to see the numbers climb.
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