The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OHSA) is a government agency that is responsible for setting guidelines to prevent work-related injuries. Their primary mission is to save lives and maintain safe and healthy working environments. It is the agency that conducts standard inspections to make sure that a worker will have safe and healthy working conditions.
Hazards in the workplace are unavoidable. Many unfortunate incidents happen in the workplace as a consequence of lack of proper precautionary measures. Falling, electrocution and tip-overs are some of the hazards that personnel might encounter.To prevent these foreseeable dangers, OHSA advanced safety precautionary standards to ensure that each and every individual operating a bucket truck would be safe and secure against any avoidable harm that could ultimately occur.
OHSA Standard Usage Guidelines
To maintain safety and a healthy working environment, the following rules and regulations have been created:
1. Operators should undergo training by an accredited testing center and be licensed to drive this specific truck. An untrained operator will be sanctioned if driving the machine. The training is done to decrease the amount of collisions in the workplace. Moreover, the employee should read the manufacturer’s manual before driving the vehicle.
2. To promote optimum personal security, workers should wear the proper equipment in the workplace. As a general rule, safety gear is needed to minimize accidents and injury. So body belts, insulating gloves, hard hats and/or harnesses should we worn at all times while working.
3. The operator should conduct inspections before and after using the truck and they should keep a written report on file to track the condition of the vehicle. In addition, operators should also check and recheck potential hazards in the area before doing their specific jobs.
4. Controls should be tested prior to the usage of the machine. Ensure that the boom bucket has upper and lower controls and can be kept within a given distance for an easy reach. The lower control should not be used while the employee is in the bucket unless so requested.
5. Ensure that bucket trucks follow the standards set by the American National Standard Institution (ANSI) which state that controls should be well-labeled to avoid confusion in case of an emergency.
6. Outriggers and brakes should be set and positioned appropriately to ensure vehicle stability while the bucket is being lifted to the specific working area.
7. Transporting the vehicle while the worker is still in the bucket is highly dangerous. This makes the worker prone to falling. The bucket should have a balustrade and emergency stop devices.
8. Avoid overloading the vehicle. The loading capacity and distribution should constantly be checked to ensure that they are within the manufacturer’s set standards.
9. The employee should stand firmly in the bucket on the truck, feet flat on the floor and have a wide base of support at all times to ensure stability while working.
10. Personnel in the bucket must have a minimum safe distance from the working site.
11. The boom should be folded and should be in the lower transportable position during travel.
Safety must be given primary consideration when dealing with heavy-duty vehicles such as bucket trucks. In this regard, work-related injuries must be kept to a minimum to confirm that a higher level of precaution is being observed. OHSA-designed standard guidelines must be followed to give direction to those individuals whose work is associated with lifts.
Failure to follow the given set of rules poses a significant negative effect to the employer and the employee. Legal fines and hospital expenditures related to work site accidents then become more common. These safety procedures cannot be ignored!
Christopher M. Hunter is an expert in commercial specialty trucks. To find out more about Bucket Trucks
