Tracy Keeping employees safe on construction sites is a responsibility that management and workers must share. One careless mistake can lead to catastrophic injuries or even death.
Safety signs help prevent accidents by letting people know where hazards are. They also let workers know what to do if they encounter dangerous situations.
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Safety Instruction Signs
When it comes to safety signs, ensuring they are easy for workers to read and understand is paramount. This includes providing rounded or blunt corners free of splinters, burrs, and sharp edges. In addition, ensure they don’t pose a hazard themselves and comply with specific workplace standards like the minimum safe viewing distance.
Mandatory safety construction signs Washington typically show a white symbol or pictogram within a blue circle and indicate an action that must take place, such as ‘Head protection must be worn in this area.’ You’ll also see these signs on construction sites indicating where fire equipment is located.
Other types of work safety signage include prohibition surround shapes that communicate prohibited actions, such as the red circular ‘Prohibition’ sign. There are also photo-luminescent safety signs that emit light after exposure to light, such as sunlight, for improved visibility in dimly lit areas. These are popular with construction and industrial companies.
Safety Warning Signs
Safety warning signs are a critical part of a construction work environment. Whether they alert workers to possible danger or provide information on how to use equipment, such signs can save lives safely.
There are a variety of safety warning sign categories, each with its own set of requirements. Generally speaking, all work safety signs must meet federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) guidelines.
For example, biological hazard signs alert workers to potential or actual threats that could result in infection. In contrast, prohibition signs tell employees what they cannot do in some regions of the site. Mandatory safety signs, meanwhile, indicate that specific items must be worn or used in the area, such as hard hats or protective clothing.
Regardless of the specific type of hazard or instruction, each kind of work safety sign has one common denominator: clear pictograms and easy-to-understand text instructions. This ensures that everyone on a construction site understands the message and can act accordingly.
Safety Signs Ahead of Traffic
Regardless of whether your construction site is permanent or temporary if you want to prevent employees from becoming injured, you must have safety signs posted around the area. This is a mandatory requirement from safety-governing bodies like OSHA and the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices.
Besides informing workers of potential hazards, work safety signs can also deter accidents from occurring by alerting people of the risks beforehand. In fact, according to the Federal Highway Administration, road fatalities involving construction zones have dropped by almost half since 1997.
The most important function of work safety signs is that they help to keep workers safe. They can communicate actions that need to be taken, such as ‘protective headgear must be worn’ and ‘foot protection required in this area.’ They can also warn people to stay clear of the site, commonly done with a metal DANGER sign with a red warning symbol.
Safety Signs for Slippery Floors
Often, workers must be aware of the presence of wet floors to avoid slipping and falling. Having warning signs posted around such areas is essential to keeping everyone safe.
Safety signs can be found in many corners of large buildings and workplaces, including construction sites. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) requires such locations to post safety signs.
These signs must have the correct specifications and wording to comply with OSHA standards. Otherwise, they could be considered illegal and expose the operation to penalties.
In addition to accident prevention, proper work safety signs offer legal protection to workers injured on a job site. These legal protections ensure that employees are fully compensated for their injuries, regardless of who caused them. This helps keep employees and their families financially secure. It also prevents them from worrying about the financial strain of medical bills and lost wages.
