OSHA: definitely bent in the straight places

The Something Awful Forums > Main > General Bullshit > OSHA: definitely bent in the straight places

zedprime: Jun 9, 2007; yospos

Jabor posted:

I mean, I wouldn't be too surprised if free-climbing those ladder sections was actually safer than laboriously migrating your harness clips up continuously as you go. Three points of contact and away you go, and fatigue causing you to make a mistake is also something you want to avoid.

The real bit is not clipping on when precariously navigating the uneven sections.

The allowance for free climbing is supposedly backed up by incident reports on file which show injuries happen on a greater frequency when clipping in was required for ladders. It sort of makes sense with the realities of fall protection favoring falling from an overhanging surface like a scaffold or roof overhang, because otherwise conservation of angular momentum means even with an arrester you cartoon swing into a wall.

e. After a fall in a harness if you can't reach something to self rescue you're on a time limit because it turns out restricting arterial flow is unhealthy. There aren't a lot of great options for rescue up an aerial or similar tower.

zedprime fucked around with this message at 19:07 on Feb 21, 2016

# ¿ Feb 21, 2016 18:55

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# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 14:28

zedprime: Jun 9, 2007; yospos

tentative8e8op posted:

So, if I understand you, deaths aren't counted in the comparison's injury count?

Never looked into it in deatail but if I haven't been mislead and it is indeed a real study it would have been focused on deaths and permanent disability.

# ¿ Feb 21, 2016 19:18

zedprime: Jun 9, 2007; yospos

Cumslut1895 posted:

it'd require:
-A voltage regulator outputting the cut-off voltage
-a comparator/transistor/opamp
-a relay/power switch
-a separate non-vital line

all on a pcb, if automotive current allows that

I don't even need any reference material to design something to prevent this...

edit: and I'm sure there's a more elegant/efficient way to design this

Or you could just kill the headlights after 5 minutes if you haven't purposefully turned parking lights on, which is a feature you can already find.

# ¿ Feb 23, 2016 14:32

zedprime: Jun 9, 2007; yospos

The USCSB has a bunch of root cause analysis summaries on their YouTube with CGI recreations of chemical plant incidents.

# ¿ Mar 2, 2016 04:56

zedprime: Jun 9, 2007; yospos

Hyperlynx posted:

I'm gobsmacked that they literally wanted to remove the safety mechanism to use elsewhere and it didn't occur to them that this was what was keeping the device safe. It's like clipping your harness to a support and then dismantling the support, and expecting the harness to protect you.

That's not unheard of from some less attentive scaffold workers taking down scaffolding.

# ¿ Mar 10, 2016 05:36

zedprime: Jun 9, 2007; yospos

TotalLossBrain posted:

What's the problem? (Other than those boards knocked into the water?)

The genset is sitting on a fuel tank. It's not a problem for the tank to be in contact with water, but it shouldn't be a permanent thing.
Also, what is that blue thing being held down by sand bags?

Not familiar with gen set ups but I assume that bund is to contain a fuel spill to hold the entire tank to keep exposed surface area from fueling an exploding vapor cloud. Sizing of which accounts for pooled water from rain storms to account for whatever administrative drain plan you have, or worst case if the drains plugged. Without the design specs and basis in front of you its hard to really bitch and moan, but the concerns about flooded bunds start well before trench foot.

e. Duhhhhh, generators are usually diesel, so this cna probaly be filed under EPA.tiff instead.

zedprime fucked around with this message at 03:33 on Mar 11, 2016

# ¿ Mar 11, 2016 03:21

zedprime: Jun 9, 2007; yospos

EKDS5k posted:

I walk under boom lifts all the time, if something is safe enough to be in while it's raised, it's safe enough to walk under. They all have holding valves that prevent the hydraulics from falling even if all pressure is lost. He still shouldn't have been drilling/working while she was there, though.

I like those odds better than a crane, but its still line of fire of a suspended load. Not having stats of boom lift incidents I don't doubt it could be matter of one size fits all where entering the line of fire is a write up, but its also usually not a huge deal to go around and as mentioned, overhead work is overhead work and you shouldn't be under the basket at the very least.

# ¿ Mar 24, 2016 13:41

zedprime: Jun 9, 2007; yospos

HughGRect posted:

This is a situation that requires a risk assessment, and possibly a LOTO procedure to protect the worker. I'm personally torn on how I would approach this, without knowing all the details; however, I don't think the worker should be the one to pull and keep the key. I also don't think it is ever wrong to push for a LOTO procedure.

Assuming the key is an interlock that effectively isolates the robot overlord from being able to assimilate the worker, and that interlock completely isolates ALL potential energy (electrical, hydraulic, mechanical, etc.) from the worker, than that could be a good place to deploy a LOTO device. You mentioned that it happens often during the shift, often enough that I might just write a procedure for clearing the debris. Supervisor secures the robot by removing the key and guarding the console, supervisor tells worker to clear the path, worker reports when done, supervisor installs the key and turns on the robot overlord. This all hinges on the magic key being an effective isolation; which, needs to be proven through technical manuals, equipment drawings, and manufactures technicians. Tribal knowledge is never enough. If there is any doubt then a LOTO procedure should be required.

If the key somehow manages to control all the energy sources, it counts as a single source and as long as the key is unique to each robot, the worker going inside keeping the key meets all the hallmarks of an effective LOTO, assuming he tags the key housing and control apparatus explaining he has it pulled.

The supervisor should only touch LOTO when it becomes cross function (operators locking out for maintenance or maintenance performing isolation steps) or will extend for greater than one shift. Making the supervisor touch every single LOTO is a very popular training wheels step that they forget to take out when everyone knows how to LOTO and also a good way to get people to say gently caress that and just skip it because when has a supervisor ever had a free minute?

Operators clearing blockages is the perfect situation for an entirely operator handled single source if the engineering is feasible. Even if there's a handful of sources, since its solely in the operators wheelhouse and something that gets done within one shift, its a very good candidate for a low administrative overhead lockout where the operator denergizes and locks the energy sources under his own direction with a local lockbox.

A risk assessment is the right request, especially because if all the safety organs are functioning correctly, it should trigger a root cause analysis about why it needs manually cleared so often in the first place and the bosses can be happy when they improve production by an iota by fixing that concurrent with making the clearing process take longer.

# ¿ Mar 28, 2016 14:40

zedprime: Jun 9, 2007; yospos

Platystemon posted:

Serious answer: they�re not fail‐safe. There�s nothing stopping one broken sensor from jamming the machine in �full forward� or some other state you don�t want.

The final layer of HMI can have less rigor if its connected to a system doing the actual controlling that you can separately estop or tell it to stop listening to that HMI device. Its like saying an off the shelf mouse is inappropriate because someone might spill their Big Gulp on it and it will click the blow up button.

e. I seem to recall Nissan wired up a car to be controlled by a PS3 controller as a Gran Turismo promo but I can't find anything about it because they apparently wired up a crossover to be a PS4 controller to play soccer

zedprime fucked around with this message at 14:17 on Apr 11, 2016

# ¿ Apr 11, 2016 13:05

zedprime: Jun 9, 2007; yospos

BattleMaster posted:

The lab I work in has signs saying "non-potable water" on all taps and I wonder if there's actually anything unsafe about the water or if they just want to discourage eating and drinking around chemicals and radioisotopes.

You need fairly strict administrative controls in place to call a water line potable without taking responsibility for poisonings in a setting where you can tie directly into a pipe or hook some tubing up to the throat of a tap and have the nasties go through a pressure excursion and end up in the water pipe.

Normal set up is to have one tie into the city water with a backflow preventer and now you have an industrial water supply that is 99% likely to just be potable but if poo poo goes down you aren't crossing the streams with the drinking fountain.

# ¿ Apr 18, 2016 15:23

zedprime: Jun 9, 2007; yospos

Phanatic posted:

Given how often forklifts are used to carry loads so large that the operator can't see past/around/over them, and needs to drive the forklift in reverse, why are rotating or dual controls not standard so he can better see where he's going instead of driving hundreds of yards looking over his shoulder?

Dual drive controls are expensive.

I think its supposed to be the lesser evil. A trained driver is supposed to be able to see and operate just as well over his shoulder so it becomes an ergonomic concern. Ideally a forklift job is one where the majority of time is spent operating looking forward. Like all or most of the loads being easy pallet pick ups long distance in the forward direction because you can see over the load, and if its an obscuring load, its an exception. Or if regularly obscuring, more time is spent picking up and setting down than the transport in between.

If you're spending more time in the transport phase looking back, a towing system could be indicated to prevent neck and back strain.

But really, lol at the idea of a trained forklift driver and lol at them spending money on the extra hands to make towing expedient.

# ¿ Apr 19, 2016 17:35

zedprime: Jun 9, 2007; yospos

I didn't know landmines were sensitive to a poo poo being dropped on one. That really is a war crime!

# ¿ Apr 21, 2016 01:33

zedprime: Jun 9, 2007; yospos

Chemical plant activity is more about purposefully getting it into a dangerous state, if it was all crazy naturally there wouldn't be much useful work to do since nature could manage it. Everything would leak or freeze with little fanfare over probably half a century, leaving dangerous residue but hardly any dungeon trap gotchas. Dangerous in the days following apocalypse, but quickly self righting.

I'd watch out for waste disposal, but not just limited to nuclear, chemical, or heavy industry. Waste disposal is a situation where you are actively doing work to keep something in place so you could envision tracts of dead land surrounding even municipal garbage dumps who's active mitigation have become neglected.

Arms depots would be scary because aged explosives end up becoming shock sensitized and whatnot.

# ¿ Apr 21, 2016 21:40

zedprime: Jun 9, 2007; yospos

The Locator posted:

Fire them when they refuse. It's not rocket science.

It ends up a little more complicated because solely relying on a top down manager/auditor driven system only actually catches the biggest idiots daring to get caught when its the repeated little chances taken day to day that often lead to tragedy. Its not the most endearing method in morale either.

Its like how traffic violations are largely just a money collection service. The real safety step changes come from drivers ed, and automotive and road engineering. Same can apply to industrial safety: start with the engineering systems in place, while working on shop floor driven safety through education, like making sure the folks taking on apprentices are the safety conscious folks. The goal is to start getting a critical mass of floor workers who will shame the idiots into being safer day to day.

You can also cast aspersions back at management, just because they can say hey we have PPE doesn't mean work processes are set up to allow the use, like unrealistic production targets, poor education on when and how to use the PPE, etc.

# ¿ Apr 28, 2016 20:25

zedprime: Jun 9, 2007; yospos

DemeaninDemon posted:

Does OSHA have a set limit on cranes per acre?

Would be hard to enforce, the largest cranes require a crane ouroboros where a crane assembles the crane to assemble the crane to assemble the crane...

# ¿ May 9, 2016 15:25

zedprime: Jun 9, 2007; yospos

FIRST TIME posted:

Also, how the gently caress is that just as safe as being on the floor? The distance to the ground is farther and the step ladder is sitting on a conveyor belt.

Glass Joe posted:

Hey now, we don't know the belt wasn't locked out/tagged out and the individual is properly harnessed, just in a way the photo doesn't show!

(We know)

He's probably above the widely practiced in construction >5ft height requirement for fall protection, but construction can also justify buying yoyos and using cheap rip stitch arresters below 8-10ft is just safety theater. OSHA requirements are for >6ft which he seems to be under.

You get enough slack in LOTO to hang yourself with, so in this case a completely applicable (but still asking for trouble) tag out is the guy can say he can watch any knucklehead try to turn it on. Also not familiar with supermarket belts, is it the sort of thing you can just unplug from a mains receptacle? Unplugging and having line of sight to the plug is an unarguably sufficient tag out even if its missing a dozen administrative steps that a mature industrial LOTO program would have.

# ¿ May 11, 2016 14:58

zedprime: Jun 9, 2007; yospos

Glass Joe posted:

Poking around led me to this: https://www.osha.gov/newsrelease/reg2-20150910.html

It doesn't say what type of conveyor it was though, so I'm guessing it was whatever is used on the loading dock/stockroom. My guess is the ones by the cash register have as much lockout capacity as your average toaster.

Says it was at a regional bakery, so probably a pretty beefy industrial job.

I was asking if it had the lockout capacity of the average toaster. Because you LOTO a toaster by unplugging it and keeping LOS with the plug :smug:

But given the stories I hear out of retail I will concede there was probably something not going by best practices in that picture, but its hard to tell without being there to pick the sitaution apart.

# ¿ May 11, 2016 15:35

zedprime: Jun 9, 2007; yospos

Tubesock Holocaust posted:

Amazing the engine managed to live through all of that.

Are we sure its driving or floating?

# ¿ May 12, 2016 17:07

zedprime: Jun 9, 2007; yospos

Jabor posted:

You'd think a basic safety procedure would be to have some sort of load attached to it, so that if it starts to run away you can channel that torque into something that isn't "accelerate beyond rated speed".

I'm not sure a runaway diesel is a solvable problem because you are either going to put too high of a hurdle to get it going in the first place with too much load, or else you just have a smaller load that is now accelerating beyond rated speed. And you can't really shift a transmission to have the choice of both because its running away.

# ¿ May 17, 2016 16:59

zedprime: Jun 9, 2007; yospos

Platystemon posted:

If we�re only speculating it was sabotage, how do we know intent?

The sabotage explanation followed from a recent history of Union Carbide doing some workers' rights quashing. Workers organized under a workers' rights movement would be more interested in being a thorn in the companies side as opposed to completely destroying their livelihood and killing their friends and neighbors.

# ¿ May 20, 2016 13:48

zedprime: Jun 9, 2007; yospos

Facebook Aunt posted:

I, for one, don't think dogs should be allowed to handle hazardous material.

Stay safe, pallet pup.

Widely misinterpreted the meaning of dog crate.

# ¿ Jun 3, 2016 22:00

zedprime: Jun 9, 2007; yospos

Improbable Lobster posted:

They can still go gently caress themselves.

I assume this isn't the first Hooker you've had to tell to go gently caress themselves after you treated an obviously dirty Love Canal like a playground.

# ¿ Jun 7, 2016 21:47

zedprime: Jun 9, 2007; yospos

Last time this came up someone had a link to examples of how every sort of cable can be a power cable if you don't like someone and want to blow up their electronics or die in a fire.

# ¿ Jun 8, 2016 22:36

zedprime: Jun 9, 2007; yospos

Mithaldu posted:

That's pretty ignorant to say. There's plenty of reasons that stick in there can be dangerous without people smashing their face into it. Just imagine, as a simple exercise, having that thing sitting on a low table, and having someone slip and fall onto it rear end-end first.

It should at least have a solid plate or similar on the tip to make it much less likely to penetrate anything falling on it.

Yeah, sure, you just happened to slip onto that dowel.

I don't know if safety ended dowels are practical, they are inserted into the cake after baking, not baked into the cake, so you can't really have something flared. My vote is to make less dumb model cakes that are 50% dowels and fondant, but at a certain point your best bet is to just make it so the purchaser knows its got structural bits. Bakers have gotten super wary of selling stuff like king cakes with the baby in them so if people get too sue happy, my wish just might come true as bakers self regulate and stop selling so many dumb cakes.

# ¿ Jun 12, 2016 23:01

zedprime: Jun 9, 2007; yospos

Platystemon posted:

I might have got this from a previous incarnation of the thread, but the one I remember has a broom I thought. Still an example of working around falcons.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pl8RURVdi2E

# ¿ Jun 13, 2016 00:52

zedprime: Jun 9, 2007; yospos

Mithaldu posted:

Let's disrupt the cake dowel industry!

Seriously though, that's a drat good point. There's tons of poo poo you can stick into a cake to make it stand up without resorting to a solid half inch thick wooden stick.

I've seen some pornos like that...

I think the issue is if it holds up a cake, its going to poke you in the eye. Like I don't think they'd look a lot better eye first headbutting a candy coated pretzel rod. I mean, pretzels have nearly assassinated a POTUS.

# ¿ Jun 13, 2016 22:11

zedprime: Jun 9, 2007; yospos

Hubis posted:

This is the type of thing that makes me wonder about the value of "swift and strong response" versus "we don't care who did it, just how did it happen and how can we fix it" policies. I guess the latter doesn't work when dangerous conditions arise from incompetence.

The cutting edge in safety policy is firing for violating no tolerance policies (usually a set of unarguable OSHA mandated policies like LOTO, working at height, hot work etc.) and to try and police willful ignorance for anything else. Except that's trying to thought police at the best of times, and at the worst of times turns into politics where any unrelated set of write ups can get you fired if your supervisor has it out for you.

# ¿ Jun 14, 2016 22:48

zedprime: Jun 9, 2007; yospos

John Denver Hoxha posted:

why not both? there are thousands of *small businesses* out there doing the exact same thing, maybe this will get some other people to speak up and it's a lot harder to silence this way than if you just file an anonymous report to get lost in bureaucratic shuffle. It seems like this got the authorities' attention too.
I would not want to work in an industrial setting with people I pissed off by reporting (word could get back somehow who was the squeaky wheel), there is precedent for "accidents" happening to those kind of people

Publishing photo or video of work activities or company assets without approval is against most boilerplate company policies and is grounds for dismissal. So if you're OK giving up what little employment protections you already have like losing out on unemployment benefits or wrongful dismissal protection, feel free to blow the whistle on YouTube or liveleaks instead of working with agencies or journalists who can both focus on the whistleblowing without sticking your rear end in the wind.

# ¿ Jun 25, 2016 12:55

zedprime: Jun 9, 2007; yospos

John Denver Hoxha posted:

I wouldn't want to be involved with those people in any way at all, I would also post the video as a gently caress you as I go out the door instead of having to deal with any formal process or putting my name on any forms, I hate paperwork and dealing with bureaucrats (and if it went viral and I made a name for myself that's just a bonus). Why are you all taking issue with this guy at all, he just blew the whistle in about the most blatant way possible (more than a million views and I've seen people I know who I wouldn't picture browsing the EPA's reports on illegal dumping activities or some small town newspaper's report on illegal business practices post it on facebook) and drew attention to a very common issue.

I only said you are giving up all personal protection by personally publishing it. You're taking on all the risk to your life and livelihood. Noone hires a whistleblower even if they were correct. They especially aren't going to hire a whistleblower who appears to be a social media threat. You're giving very explicit cause for termination in a setting where the companies already hold a huge deal of power because of at-will employment laws.

If you're lucky, you can take it to the union. If you're unlucky, you can take it to an agency or the press. If you want to dedicate the rest of your life to the cause, because you will probably otherwise be underemployed for the rest of your life, you post it yourself on the internet.

# ¿ Jun 25, 2016 17:07

zedprime: Jun 9, 2007; yospos

I have to imagine stop drop and roll is more useful to have drilled into your head without electricity.

# ¿ Jun 28, 2016 21:48

zedprime: Jun 9, 2007; yospos

DrBouvenstein posted:

Worker dies in fall at UVM Construction site.

Right, he was totally wearing a harness, we just took it of of him for no reason before he went to the hospital.

I'm guessing that they might have even just brought him over to the ER themselves, considering it's literally across the parking lot from the construction site:

Its a fairly common cheat to harness up but not tie off figuring a supervisor or inspecter will think "oh he's got a harness on" and not try to visually reckon a tie off point.

Its also too common for people just to tie off to dumb poo poo that won't actually hold them if they fall.

# ¿ Jul 1, 2016 17:44

zedprime: Jun 9, 2007; yospos

whitey delenda est posted:

Poor lil guy, what is the wheel he's turning attached to?

Its a valve handle. He's closing some giant rear end pipe, with what is probably hilarious effects

# ¿ Jul 7, 2016 18:40

zedprime: Jun 9, 2007; yospos

The Locator posted:

Based on the color and some of the fittings visible... My guess is high pressure gas line. Of course since it's in a strange land where that creature lives, they may use completely different colors for things so who knows.

I was also being a little dramatic. Those sorts of valve actuators have such huge mechanical advantages in the gearbox you're going to be spinning that thing for a while to make a serious change to flow resistance.

I assume some guy monitoring the line started seeing it behave funky, scratched his head, asked a tech to go check out the line. Then the tech gets there and says you ain't going to believe this, and catches a video while cracking up.

# ¿ Jul 7, 2016 21:54

zedprime: Jun 9, 2007; yospos

staplegun posted:

Scrambled eggs would probably be more accurate

Nah omelette works, they gently caress everything up and just let it sit there on the fire.

# ¿ Jul 12, 2016 21:34

zedprime: Jun 9, 2007; yospos

The Locator posted:

The guy at the head doing the actual replacement looks like he is wearing custom fit ear inserts of some kind. Maybe electronic noise cancelling doo-dads, or hell, maybe just hearing aids since his job made him go deaf probably.

You can get custom fit ear plugs molded to your ear canal, they tend to be the highest rated you could get.

Royal W posted:

Couldn't they use over-ear protection?

Over ear is better than nothing, but is not recognized as a primary form of ear protection because they tend to spend worrying amounts of time not on the ears from jostling and movement or instinctually tipping a cup when someone is talking at you.

# ¿ Jul 15, 2016 04:23

zedprime: Jun 9, 2007; yospos

Depending on the source of operations insurance (if not diligence in actually getting it lol), its possible to get hit enough in the bottom line due to citations to drive some safety programs.

The bad part is fines are a huge boon in the operating budget of agencies so you're paying insurance fat cats instead of building sustainable agency driven programs.

# ¿ Jul 19, 2016 01:37

zedprime: Jun 9, 2007; yospos

Humphreys posted:

Actually there isn't any really good way out of crashing or getting into that thing.

Should be fine with an air frame parachute.

# ¿ Aug 2, 2016 14:09

zedprime: Jun 9, 2007; yospos

Terrible Opinions posted:

Wait are there states where the fault isn't automatically given to any car whose front impacts the back of another?

De jure there are several cases where that doesn't apply, concerning right of way or breaking a law to put the striker in the situation in the first place. My only accident was a glancing blow after someone turned right on red, the police gave no citation but required the other party to report it through their insurance and I ended up getting $400 to repair a $50 headlight.

De facto its a good assumption that you are likely to get faulted if your front hit someone else no matter the specific laws at play, so the basis of defensive driving is to do everything in your power to not strike someone no matter the laws.

# ¿ Aug 9, 2016 13:10

zedprime: Jun 9, 2007; yospos

Anyone who's ever played Roller Coaster Tycoon knows that a second hill on a waterslide is going to 100% kill someone, some day.

# ¿ Aug 9, 2016 13:23

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# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 14:28

zedprime: Jun 9, 2007; yospos

Oldie but goodie. I remember my highschool physics teacher putting that up as a physics in real life example 10 or 11 years ago.

# ¿ Aug 10, 2016 01:46

The Something Awful Forums > Main > General Bullshit > OSHA: definitely bent in the straight places

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