While it seems to make sense that seatbelts would make all drivers safe in a crash, a Saskatoon Court of Queen’s Bench judge recently ruled that buckling up may actually be more dangerous for transit bus drivers.

In an October 20 decision, Justice Grant Currie overturned Saskatoon bus driver Dean Christianson’s traffic court conviction for failing to wear his seatbelt. In his ruling, the judge said, “His experiences, and those of others that had come to his attention in the course of working in his industry, gave him reason to believe that his safety may be compromised by wearing a seatbelt.”

Christianson’s argument was based on his belief that, if his bus passengers assaulted him, being strapped into his seat would make him less able to defend himself. In his initial traffic court trial, Christianson cited violence against bus drivers as a “growing, nationwide epidemic.” He noted that he had been threatened by three people riding on the bus at the time he was pulled over.

“As someone who has been spit on, I discovered that you do not know who is going to grab your steering wheel while you’re driving or sucker punch you, or stab you, or spit on you. You have no idea who it’s coming from,” he said. “Some of the drivers have been sucker punched while they are driving and took repetitive blows while trying to get their seatbelt off so they can defend themselves.”

Under Saskatchewan’s Traffic Safety Act, a bus driver is not required to wear a seatbelt if they have reason to believe it may put them at risk of injury. While the Crown argued that the exemption applies only when there was a specific risk of injury, Justice Currie disagreed, and ruled that the regulation could also be applied to any driver who “may be continuously exposed to a compromise of his or her safety on a random basis.”

Since 2008, it is Saskatoon civic policy that all public employees wear a seat belt whenever they’re behind the wheel of a city vehicle, although the transit union is hoping this ruling will help change that policy. For the time being, until  the policy is changed, however, the union will continue to instruct drivers to wear seatbelts while on the job. However, if the city disciplines a driver for not wearing a seatbelt, the union will take the matter to arbitration.

A North Salt Lake City business, Thermal West Industrial Inc., has sued the University of Utah over a plumbing failure last November that left 12 workers with scalding burns.

The accident occurred beneath a parking lot in a vault near 300 South and 1850 East last November 1. The company had been hired by the university to install hot-water piping trunks in a new tunnel system through the school’s campus. As they worked on the underground pipe, at least 40,000 gallons of hot water poured into the tunnel system through a water line that was designated inactive and abandoned, burning the workers with 400 degree (Fahrenheit) steam, resulting in injuries to 12 workers, three of them critical.

The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) investigated the work-related accident and found Thermal West Industrial was not at fault. In April, the Utah Labor Commission cited the university for failing to cap the inactive water line, even though it was still connected to active lines.

In its lawsuit, Thermal West claims it has lost customers since the incident because the worker’s injury reports caused the contractor’s safety rating to drop, resulting in lost contracts with some of its biggest customers. In all, the suit seeks $4,505,000 in lost contract revenue and $325,000 in increased workmen’s compensation costs.

If you are driving in New Brunswick, be aware that, as of June 6, it is now illegal to do so while talking, texting, or messing with your iPod, so you might want go hands free, or consider letting that call go to voicemail if not.

The new law prohibits the manual operation of use of any portable communications or entertainment devices while driving, and goes so far as to prohibit the manual programming or adjusting of any global positioning system while driving. That means, if your cell phone, GPS or MP3 player isn’t hands-free, you run the risk of a ticket.

And make no mistake; the ticket could cost you dearly. If police stop you, you could see a fine of $172.50 and lose three points from your license. In addition, the Insurance Bureau of Canada has strongly suggested that drivers can also expect to see higher rates for auto insurance.

Police throughout the province began enforcing the new legislation from day one, and they have let it be known that those who choose to disregard the law in its first few weeks do so at their own risk, as they plan no leniency. They note that the new law was passed in December, and the public has been aware that it was coming for months now, so they view that as a sufficient “grace period.”

Among the exemptions included with the new law are voice-operated systems, one-touch devices or built-in screens. Of course, police officers and other emergency personnel will be exempt, and drivers will be permitted to make emergency 911 calls when necessary without incurring a fine. Commercial vehicle drivers will still be allowed to use two-way radios, and ham radio operators can still use them for emergency activities.

Though New Brunswick is one of the last provinces to enact such a ban, lawmakers hope that the new legislation will create a cultural shift towards improved road safety. Lawmakers worry about the number of young people killed on New Brunswick’s highways every year as they play with their hand-held gadgets. Thus far, public feedback has been positive, although RCMP officers expect a bit of a learning curve. They note that the wearing of seatbelts has been required since 1983, but they still catch people driving without them.

According to the Canada Safety Council, drivers who take their eyes off the road to adjust their hand-held device are as much as 23 times more likely to get into an accident.

Newfoundland based Concord Paving Ltd. is now facing charges in relation to a fatal workplace accident in May 2009, in which a flagperson was killed.

According to news releases at the time, the incident happened on the Holyrood Access Road in Holyrood. An excavator was being used to clean out a ditch alongside the roadway, when it struck and killed a flagperson who was working nearby.

After an investigation by the Occupational Health and Safety Branch of the Department of Government Services, the company was charged with six violations under the Occupational Health and Safety Act and Regulations generally relating to its alleged failure as an employer to provide a safe workplace, to ensure that effective means of traffic control were provided, and to ensure that workers were not exposed to the movement of heavy equipment.

The company will make its first appearance in St. John’s provincial court on June 13.

If you or someone you know experiences a constant buzzing, humming or whistling sound in your ears, you may be suffering from tinnitus. The number of reported cases of tinnitus seems to be climbing, to the point that a number of studies have been conducted to look into the situation.

A recent study conducted by university researchers from Canada and the United States suggests that the “sounds” described by patients who have tinnitus are actually generated by neurons firing in the brain, and not the ear. They found that most cases of tinnitus are triggered by the hearing loss associated with noise exposure or the aging process, but a number of cases are caused by a number of other factors, such as head injury, poor blood circulation or disrupted blood flow.

Basically, tinnitus itself is brought on by changes in the brain caused by hearing loss. Neurons in the brain are designed to receive input from the ear, but when hearing loss causes the brain to basically disconnect from the ear, the brain’s auditory neurons “talk” to each other, in order to compensate for the loss of sound. This “neural synchrony” is what generates the tinnitus sensation.

Like hearing loss, tinnitus typically starts off as a mild ringing and gradually increases in intensity. While tinnitus sufferers usually experience hearing loss in the high-frequency spectrum, many retain fairly normal conversational hearing, because it registers in the low-frequency range. Because of this, most people who suffer tinnitus symptoms often wait five to seven years, on average, before seeking medical attention.

Researchers warn that anyone who is exposed to loud noises is at risk for tinnitus, including those working in construction, transportation, logging, mining, or even the music business. Tinnitus is also a major cause of disability in soldiers returning from Afghanistan and Iraq, because of the loud noise exposure.

The danger to workers from tinnitus should be evaluated and considered carefully, as part of the company’s health and safety policies. If workers can’t hear the sounds they need to hear, such as train whistles and truck horns, they could be at greater risk in the workplace. Because the humming associated with chronic tinnitus is usually more intense at night, it can result in lost sleep and greater stress.

There is no cure for tinnitus, but a recent study out of the University of Texas offers hope that a new treatment may be coming. Researchers there noted that pairing sounds with stimulation of the vagus nerve – a cranial nerve with branches to the larynx, throat, windpipe, lungs, heart and most of the digestive system, eliminated tinnitus in rats. The process seems to retrain the brain to ignore the nerve signals that stimulate the ringing, according to that study.

In the meantime, the goal of any workplace should always be to reduce workplace noise, and where noise levels remain necessarily high, protective gear is a must, as is worker compliance. Experts also recommend that a good practice is for workers to undergo audiological assessments every couple of years, according to the Canadian Hard of Hearing Association. They also recommend that people suffering from tinnitus read up on the condition, because knowledge of the symptoms can teach them how to minimize the risk.

An increasing number of women have entered the workforce over the years, and with a high demand for workers expected in the near future, more women are expected to be hired in the future. But to date, no one knows for sure what the effects might be of some types of work on a woman’s. For example, what precautions must be taken to protect a pregnant welder?

The Canadian Standards Association’s safety committee has put out a call to a couple of University of Alberta professors who specialize in occupational medicine to conduct some research into the problem, through a project called the WHAT-ME (Women’s Health in Alberta Trades-Metalworking and Electricians).

Currently, it’s estimated that around 1,800 women work in metalworking jobs, including welders, pipefitters, steamfitters and boilermakers. The researchers, Nicola Cherry, who heads the occupational medicine program at the U of A, and Jeremy Beach, want as many women as possible to sign up for the study. They hope to follow these women for at least two years, compiling data regarding their health and examining any possible work-related effects, including pregnancy problems.

So far, the women who have signed up range in age from 18 to 60. Most have expressed concern about what their jobs are doing to their health. Welders of both sexes have been known to develop respiratory problems and a flu-like ailment known as metal-fume fever. Similarly, arc welders can also have problems with their eyes and skin.

It is likely that demand for qualified metal workers will rise in the next few years, and it’s expected that even more women will apprentice in these jobs, so agencies such as Alberta Workplace Health and Safety would like to know more about any specific health hazards come with the work. Currently, because many companies have access to limited information regarding women’s health, they have policies in which they simply take pregnant welders out of the workplace. Unfortunately, while such moves are meant to keep a woman worker safe and healthy, they put many women at a professional disadvantage. For example, if the worker is an apprentice, they will lose trade hours. And if the company doesn’t have alternative employment, the woman worker is often forced out altogether.

Hopefully, the University of Alberta study will provide more comprehensive information that will allow agencies and employers to make more informed decisions, and to prevent unfair situations from occurring, while they protect the health of women who work in metalworking and electrical trades.

The head of the Canadian Auto Workers, Canada’s largest private sector union, is sending out a warning to everyone that a large number of the country’s youngest workers are being asked to work in unsafe conditions. Not only that, but young workers often have no idea of their rights, including the right to refuse unsafe work, according to CAW president Ken Lewenza.

The warning comes in the wake of a $350,000 fine levied last week against retail grocer Metro Ontario for an Occupational Health and Safety Act violation that caused the death of a 17-year-old worker back in August 2009.

According to a Ministry of Labour investigation, the accident occurred at a Mississauga Metro store on Erin Mills Parkway. The young worker, a CAW member, had only been on the job for about three weeks when he was told to remove a box that had been stored on top of a drop ceiling. When the worker climbed up a ladder and stepped onto the ceiling, he fell through and suffered a fatal head injury.

According to statistics from the government of Ontario, each year more than 10,000 workers under the age of 25 are injured on the job and are unable to return to work the next day.

The owner of a Manitoba paving company where 15-year-old worker Andrew James was killed when he was buried in burning asphalt two years ago is facing more than two dozen new charges under provincial workplace health and safety laws. Including the charges his company already faces under the Employment Standards Code for employing a person under the age of 16, Gerald Shepell now faces a total of 29 separate charges in the July 25, 2008 accident.

According to court documents, the new charges include eight counts of failing to ensure the safety, health, and welfare of the workers he employed on that date.

According to reports, Shepell has pleaded not guilty and is scheduled to stand trial on October 7. In an interview, he stated that he didn’t know it was against Manitoba law to employ people younger than 16 at construction sites. He stated that he had the permission of the boy’s parents and thought that was good enough.

For the record, people under the age of 16 are allowed to work in Manitoba, but they must have a permit from the provincial employment standards branch. They are not allowed to work between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m., and they are specifically forbidden from working at construction sites, manufacturing plants, on drilling or servicing rigs or on scaffolding.

Last week, a 58-year-old electrical contractor fell to his death in Carman, Manitoba after a hydro pole snapped while he was unhooking power lines.

The man, an electrical contractor whom area residents have identified as Bob Murray, who owned Bob Murray Electric Ltd., had been working at Vanderveens’ Greenhouses Ltd., located in the Rural Municipality of Dufferin, west of the town of Carman.  According to RCMP, they had hired Murray’s company to do electrical work as part of an addition to their facilities.

Murray was apparently in the process of unhooking hydro power lines, and was on a ladder that he had propped up against the pole before it snapped and fell over around shortly before 11:30 a.m., according to Carman RCMP. The pole apparently belonged to the greenhouse and was not owned or maintained by Manitoba Hydro, according to a Hydro spokesperson.

The incident is currently being investigated by Manitoba Workplace Safety and Health.

The Ontario government recently launched an eight-week health and safety awareness campaign designed to enlighten construction workers and their employers.

They unveiled the campaign at Algonquin College, at the site of the school’s  new construction trades building, which will open to about 2,500 construction trades students next year. The new campaign follows a 90-day safety enforcement blitz of more than 2,800 construction sites.

Even though the province’s lost-time injury rate among construction workers is one of the lowest in Canada, the 90-day blitz revealed numerous violations, including improper equipment use and poor supervisor and worker training. As a result, Ontario officials decided that it was time to emphasize the need for the entire construction industry to learn the importance of safety.

The campaign is being run in Canadian cities with the highest construction activity, including Ottawa.  It is sponsored by the Ministry of Labour, the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board and the Infrastructure Health & Safety Coalition, and will feature newspaper advertising in the key ethnic languages spoken in the construction sector, and posters will appear on construction fences.  Tip sheets for workers will be available on the ministry’s website at www.ontario.ca/ConstructionSafety.

Another aspect of the campaign revolves around a hope that the public can become more involved in providing information to ministry officials. To that end, a toll free phone number (1-877-202-0008) has been established for the public to call in and report safety issues they see. If a follow-up visit deems a jobsite unsafe, the province can issue a stop-work order in the interests of safety.