Eye
protection, it’s a topic that never seems to go away.
Every year “foreign bodies in the eye” and “corneal abrasions”
are two of the three most frequent injuries for OADA members. Typically,
dealership employees loudly proclaim their inability to understand how eye
injuries happen. Of course, all of them wear their eye protection! In the past
KPA engineers have brought video cameras to dealerships.
Upon meeting with the service manager first thing in the morning, the two
walk around the shop taking unobtrusive video shots of the techs at work. At the
safety meeting at
noon
, the technicians are then treated to a color video that typically shows more
than a third of them working with air impact tools or dangerous chemicals
without eye protection!
The
point here is that eye injuries are not like being struck by lightning.
There is always a high probability of them happening and the consequences
are almost always serious. The message? Eye and face protection require
“eternal vigilance” on the part of management! There
is a lot of technical detail in the federal regulations that apply to eye and
face protection. Here is the part that counts:
Each
employer shall use appropriate eye and face protection when exposed to eye or
face hazards from flying particles, liquid chemicals, acids, or caustic liquids,
chemical gases or vapors, or potentially injurious light radiation.
Normally
this means that people in the service department, body shop, and detail area
should be wearing approved eye protection when:
-
Operating
a grinder.
-
Cutting
keys in the parts department.
-
Sanding
or buffing vehicles.
-
Working
under vehicles on lifts.
-
Welding
- Welders should wear welding helmets.
-
Using
compressed aerosols.
-
Handling
hazardous materials in bulk.
What
is proper eye wear? Proper eyewear, according to the federal regulations:
-
Provides
side protection is there is a hazard from flying objects.
-
Should
be properly shaded where there is exposure to injurious light rays.
-
Where
the employee wears corrective lenses, the proper eyewear will consist of
safety spectacles with the correction, goggles to fit over spectacles or
protective goggles with protective lenses mounted behind the protective
lenses. (emphasis
added)
Eye
damage to an employee, especially for lack of management involvement in the
safety process, can be a sad, demoralizing, and very expensive experience. Again
- the answer to eye protection really is “eternal vigilance” by management.
For
more information concerning safety in the dealership, contact
Tiffany Hammer
or Nick Hardesty of KPA at (888) 662-2663.
.
