The strongest can still be the Weakest Link
Hours after hours, construction sites receive incoming and outgoing heavy loading vehicle to transport goods for the construction phase. However recently, traffic related issues have been making the headline that spells trouble for personnel related to the Quality, Environment, Safety and Health sector.
Heavy loading vehicle bringing such load in and out of site has proven to be the sole catalyst for work on site and without their activity, nothing can be done on time - just review back to the time delivery was late or cancelled due to breakdown or insufficient resource for transportation.
It is not any individual's right to say the main cause of incident are the irresponsible act of drivers, however, it is definitely not wrong either to bring up the fact that such heavy loading vehicles are the reason why traffic related accident cases has gone up - it is simply them who are categorized under the group, so to speak.
Safety with heavy loading vehicles is rather a huge topic. As one may say, controlling something bigger than you will cause more harm if you lack the expertise. However, when it comes to safety of operating such vehicle, whose responsibility it is to make sure every thing is adhered to?
Here are the few topics that would result to safety lapse:
Blind spots
Having to be quick and 'efficient', many leave the safety aspects of procedure to fasten their work action. Safety procedure have been deemed to slower the process and as such it is deemed as a burden to many. However, blind spots has been a major caused that leads to accidents and it does contribute to the increment in traffic related accident. The below picture shows where are the blind spots of a big loading truck:
Blind spots, however, does not only link to human traffic as the recent increase in cases of accidents related to object towing. Such incidents may seem very direct, however, it also means that the delivering party lacks the knowledge to operate such machine on a daily basis. This knowledge is rather a circular one as it includes the routes able to take and if vehicles are safe enough to move having in mind if the machinery on-board is properly reclined. As the Ministry of Manpower heighten its requirement pertaining to vehicles, a mandatory signalling system is now implemented to notify driver if machinery on-board is properly reclined. This usage of technology, though seems small, plays a big part as it enables the driver to be certain that the height limit met are properly adhered to.
Sleepiness
Due to the low supply of drivers and a very high possibility of companies wanting to cut cost, Big-Loading drivers are 'encouraged' to go an extra mile and as such, this might result in long hours of work. The end result is sleepiness. With the recent increase in technology in the construction industry, Ford invented a cap that notifies the driver if he is sleepy or alerts the driver should any behavior be out of norm.
With the increment in technology these days, is it our fault for not getting started to prevent such incident to happen? Well it all comes down to proper documentation of every incident and pre-process to be taken note of. This two steps can be used to act as a guideline to use technology as a baseline.
With technology taking the lead even with industry that always relates to traditional methods, it seems like even safety can be handle to create a more efficient and safe environment.
