Working as a construction worker can often be a dangerous task, especially in areas of heavy traffic and poor visibility, such as during times of inclement weather. However, employing things like a reflective safety jacket or hi vis rain gear can help to prevent the rising number of injuries and even fatalities among construction workers in the United States (and even around the world). Even just he implementation of a reflective safety jacket can have more of an impact on overall safety rates than you may believe, proving that even small changes have the potential to be impactful.
There is no doubt about it that construction workers work a difficult, often physically demanding job. In fact, construction workers take as many as thirty thousand steps in just one day – twenty thousand more steps than the average person will take in their day to day life. Because of this as well as other reasons, protective footwear is an important part of any construction worker’s apparel. Protective footwear not only provides stability and balance to a construction worker at the tail end of a long day, it can also help considerably in preventing injury. Steel toed boots, for instance, are a popular apparel choice among construction workers around the country, lauded for their ability to prevent or minimize a serious injury. Overall, up to seventy dollars are spent per every construction worker annually on protective footwear for construction workers in the United States.
Ear protection is also essential for many construction sites, as the majority of construction sites have some degree of potentially damaging noise. It has been proven that permanent hearing damage can result from consistent exposure to sounds louder than eighty five decibels, common for your average construction site. Fortunately, ear plugs that fit well (and perhaps have been custom fit to the individual construction worker) can reduce decibel exposure by as much as fifteen decibels.
Working on the road is often one of the most dangerous places for a construction worker to be, especially in conditions like rain that can considerably lessen visibility for construction workers and drivers alike. Fortunately, the implementation of a reflective safety jacket or reflective safety hoodie and reflective vest or reflective windbreaker jacket can help to lessen the injuries and fatalities that often occur at construction sites on the road.
Unfortunately, rates of fatalities among construction workers are high, with around thirteen construction related deaths occurring every day in the United States. In 2015 alone, nearly five thousand construction workers were killed at their job sites. Rates of injuries are high as well, and the average injury sustained at a construction site caused the average construction worker between the ages of nineteen and sixteen to miss at least four days of work, if not more. However, many of these injuries and even deaths are able to be prevented with the implementation of the right gear.
Steel toed boots, for example, help to keep construction workers from sustaining a serious injury or lessening the severity of the injury if it is sustained. A reflective safety jacket is ideal for increasing the visibility of a construction worker, particularly one who is working on a road with heavy traffic but low visibility, often due to weather conditions like rain that are not able to be controlled but only monitored. Deaths among construction workers do not have to be merely a fact of the trade but can be actively prevented, as well as many of the injuries – both big and small – that are sustained by most construction workers at some point in their careers. A reflective safety jacket, though it is a small change to make, can have an impact bigger than we might originally think.