There has been a rash of accidents involving snowplows in Saskatchewan lately. The latest incident involves a provincial snowplow that was hit  by a semi-trailer on the Trans-Canada Highway on Sunday afternoon, January 16. It was actually the third such incident in less than two weeks.

According to the Highways Ministry, the latest accident occurred during whiteout conditions near Balgonie. The semi swerved and hit the snowplow on the right rear side, causing extensive damage to both vehicles. Neither driver was injured.

That particular crash followed a more serious accident on Highway 40 near Shellbrook on Friday morning, January 14, in which a snowplow operator was plowing in the southbound lanes of the highway when a northbound car crossed into the wrong lane and hit the snowplow head on. The driver of the car in that accident was treated for minor injuries, while two passengers — a woman and a small child — received non-life-threatening injuries.

Another snowplow was hit by a car around noon on Jan. 6. In that incident, the operator had been plowing on Highway 19 near Elbow when he was rear-ended.  According to the Ministry’s report, the driver had entered the whiteout created by the plow before the crash.

Here are some basic safety tips for all drivers when operating near snowplows:

• Stay alert! If you’re on a major road and it’s snowing, there are likely to be plows working.
• Note that snowplows travel slower than posted speeds, and always yield to them.
• Remember that a snowplow weighs far more than a car, and a crash is more likely to do more damage to you and your vehicle than the snowplow and its operator.
• Give snowplow operators plenty of room to do their jobs.
• Never drive into a snow cloud.
• Never use cruise control on wet or icy roads.
• Slow down and be patient. Allow for a safe distance between your vehicle and a snowplow.

Wait until the snowplow pulls over (they do so every 10km) to pass.

Last summer, the Ontario Ministry of Transportation (MTO) began testing a fully mobile work zone barrier system during a concrete repair project on Highway 115, southwest of Peterborough.

The new system is fully mobile, consisting of a wheeled unit, which is pulled by a standard truck tractor. The unit can be deployed relatively quickly and, because of its reversible axles, it can easily be reconfigured for either right or left applications in about half an hour.

These new mobile units, which are bright orange to alert drivers that road work is taking place, reduce the need for road crews to set up a Temporary Concrete Barrier (TCB), which means they can finish road work and reopen a lane in less time.  By adding panels, the size of the work zone can be expanded to as much as 31 metres, and the systems are also customizable, including such options as portable message signs, auxiliary lighting and a privacy barrier. The unit meets U.S. National Cooperative Highway Research Program 350 TL-3 crash test requirements, as well.

The mobile work zone barriers increase the safety of maintenance and construction crews, according to a number of test projects, and past use by others. The state of California has been deploying such mobile barriers since 2004, for example, and they have proven to be very time effective and safe. California refers to its mobile barriers as “Balsi Beams,” because they were developed after worker Mark Balsi was killed by a motorist while picking up trash along the highway. California’s Balsi Beam was among those demonstrated to MTO officials at a conference several years ago, which led to last summer’s trial.

Construction crews have so far found it easy to adapt to the devices, and feel very confident working behind them.  The Highway 115 trial project proved the units to be so effective that the contractor’s schedule was advanced, and work was completed ahead of time, because they were able to eliminate the work necessary in placing and removing the TCB.

Due to the success of the initial mobile barrier trial, MTO expects to expand their use for projects such as pothole filling, pavement testing, crack sealing, bridge and guide rail repairs, and even accident scene investigations.

Photos of the mobile work zone barrier system in action can be found here.

On Tuesday, January 18, emergency crews from La Ronge rescued a 61-year-old worker after he had been trapped for more than eight hours in a five-story chute that leads down to a rock crusher at a northern Saskatchewan gold mill.

RCMP responded to a call from the Jolu gold mill, which is operated by Golden Band Resources, Inc. and is located approximately 130 km north of La Ronge, shortly before 3 p.m. The worker, who is employed by Kitsaki Procon Joint Venture as a welder, was working above the crushing machine when the ground beneath him gave way. He slid down the chute and was pinned against the wall, buried in ore from the waist down.

According to the La Ronge fire department, the space was so small that Arsenault had to do most of the actual digging himself, with rescue crews lifting the buckets of ore out as he did so. They felt they had to move carefully to prevent further problems. This made the rescue effort was long and grueling. Eventually, when the worker was able to get one leg free, he squeezed his other leg out, and rescuers were able to use a harness to lift him out the rest of the way.

Finally, at about 11:30 p.m., the worker was above ground, where he was taken to hospital and treated for hypothermia and mild frostbite, and then released.

Operations at the mill were suspended Wednesday, as they looked into the cause of the incident.

As has been promised, Albertans will soon have a new website to check out; one designed to provide them with greater access to employers’ injury and fatality records.

Of course, as usual some folks still have no plans to be satisfied. Some feel that the information will be too limited, and won’t offer an adequate picture of most companies’ safety records. The Alberta Federation of Labour, for example, has issued a statement saying that the government’s “watered-down” website falls short of what they promised eight years ago, and that it doesn’t hold employers accountable.  They would like to see more information on the site, such as specific work site inspection reports, safety violations and enforcement orders

Overall, the provincial government plans to publish partial safety records covering 2005-2009 for roughly 125,000 employers covered by the Workers’ Compensation Board.  Nearly 12,000 businesses that carry voluntary insurance coverage, such as farms, advertising agencies and flyer distributors, won’t be included.

The new site, which should be up and running by the end of September, will include the following information:

• The number of recorded lost-time work injury and illness claims by a company;
• Each company’s lost-time claim rate, which helps measure the likelihood of an occupational injury or disease. The claim rate will then be compared with industry and provincial averages. This number will not be included for employers with fewer than 40 full-time equivalent workers.
• The number of fatalities recorded by each company;
• Whether a business holds a certificate of recognition, which acknowledges an employer has an audited safety program.

The creation of this web site comes as the province faces greater scrutiny of its efforts to protect workers. Last spring, the province received scathing criticism after an Auditor General’s investigation found Alberta Employment wasn’t sufficiently going after employers with poor safety records. That report also voiced concerns about Alberta’s safety certificate program.

Over the past decade, 1,285 Alberta workers have been killed on the job. In 2008 alone, the province had the second-highest worker fatality rate, with a 26-year high 166 workers killed on the job that year alone. Every year, more Albertans die from workplace accidents than from murder.

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.

Edmonton-based equipment dealer Finning Canada faces four counts for violations of Alberta’s occupational health and safety code in the wake of a worker’s death two years ago.

On July 8, 2008, a worker was killed on the job at Suncor Energy Inc’s Millennium mine site near Fort McMurray, when he and other Finning workers were moving a disabled hauling truck to the shop for repairs. The worker was run over by the vehicle and fatally injured, and two other workers also sustained minor injuries in the accident. One was treated on-site, while the other was taken to hospital in Grande Prairie, where he was treated and released.  A stop-work order was issued at the time, restricted to the immediate area around the site of the accident.

Finning released a statement on its website calling the worker’s death “truly a tragic incident – one that will forever impact Kevin’s family, all those who worked alongside him in the oil sands and our company as a whole.” The statement goes on to say that “at Finning, safety is a core value that influences everything we do. We remain committed to achieving and sustaining health and safety excellence in all of our business operations.”

The charges the company faces include;

• Failing as an employer to ensure, as far as it is reasonably practicable to do so, the health and safety of workers engaged in the work of that employer, as stipulated under section 2(1)(a)(i) of the provincial Occupational Health & Safety Act;
• Violation of sections 7(4) and 8(1) of the Act. Section 7(4) states that an employer must ensure that a hazard assessment is repeated at reasonably practicable intervals to prevent the development of unsafe and unhealthy working conditions.  Section 8(1) stipulates that an employer must involve affected workers in the hazard assessment and in the control or elimination of the hazards identified.
• Violation of section 15(1) of the Act, which demands that an employer must ensure that a worker is trained in the safe operation of the equipment the worker is required to operate.

The company is scheduled to first appear in Fort McMurray Provincial Court August 30 .

Something that’s not really so much a safety requirement as it is a necessity� A disposable camera.

More often than not, what happens after a collision is basically one headache after another. It’s literally a long battle between you, the other driver, and the insurance companies on both side. It all starts with the collision investigation, and the only way you can really guarantee anyone taking your claims seriously is with some collision photos.

I know a lot of people who will say “I don’t need a camera; I’m a very safe driver!” Well, that’s exactly why you need a camera, to prove that fact if some other driver gets you caught up in an collision. If you’re a reckless driver, leave your camera at home, the photos will only incriminate you!

Like they say in the military, complacency kills. It’s not that you’ll definitely need a camera, but, you know the saying, it’s better to have it and not need it, than need it and not have it.

You can probably get one for less than ten dollars just about anywhere. I recommend you use a disposable camera because, yeah, we all use digital cameras now, we have cameras in our phone, but those rely on a battery, and the batteries in a digital camera can die if you leave it in your glove compartment too long. Your cell phone might run out of life just before you take the photo (or it might be damaged in the collision), or the image quality might just not be very good.

These days, having to actually develop film is kind of a hassle. Remember when there used to be shops dedicated entirely to developing film? Now it’s more like one little counter tucked away in the drugstore. But we’re not really talking about pictures from last night’s excursion to your favourite pub or vacation snapshots. It’s definitely worth the effort to develop the film when your butt is on the line after an collision. Disposable cameras are cheap and reliable, even if they are kind of a hassle to go develop.

I hear from some people that the first thing to do after an collision is try to determine who’s at fault. I don’t really like that. I think the first thing you should do is make sure you and your passengers are okay, make sure the people in the other car are okay, call emergency services if needed, and then try to determine who’s at fault. Human life and safety are always more important than which guy is gonna have his rates jacked up.

But still, determining fault is an important step, and you want to take your photos, make notes, and get the story straight while it’s still fresh in your mind, so if you haven’t yet, pick up a disposable camera the next time you’re out.