Massachusetts Workers Compensation Lawyers Blog
According to an article from Occupational Health and Safety Online, recent advances in lighting technology have made jobs considerably safer for workers who rely on flashlights and lanterns to see during their work. These advances in light equipment allow small hand-held devices to offer brightness that matches large floodlights.
One of the new lighting technologies that is making the job safer and reducing workers’ compensation claims is known as high lumen technology. High lumen lights are especially helpful at inherently dangerous working environments like nighttime construction sites, industrial operations, mines, and many other types of employment. LED technology has become so advanced in recent years that small lights can produce between 500 and 1,100 lumens for extended periods of time. Ten years ago, it would have taken huge lights that get hot and require a lot of power to produce anywhere near these light levels, and it would have been unheard of to have it in a handheld device.
There are also high lumen lanterns and work lights that can light up entire worksites with lighting levels that equal daylight conditions. There are also high lumen tools that offer spot light distances in a small package. This means workers can inspect towers and other overhead structures from the ground rather than by climbing them, and anytime you can work from the ground, you are much less likely to be injured or killed on the job. As our Boston workplace accident attorneys know, fall accidents are often the most dangerous and potentially deadly types of on-the-job incidents.
Another aspect of these new lights that is actually reducing the number of on-the-job accidents is the fact that these new lighting tools are rechargeable with USB cables, like a standard cellphone. While this might seem strange as a safety feature, in the past, dead batteries were a common occurrence on the jobsite, and people had flashlights that wouldn’t work and had to try to get by without them. This resulted in serious on-the-job injuries.
Headlamps have also come a long way, and they can go a long way to make the workplace safer. While many of us imagine a mineworker wearing a large hardhat with a huge dim flashlight on the front, modern LED headlamps are lightweight, small, and have batteries that last a long time. These are helping keep workers safe in a broad range of workplaces, from auto mechanics to firefighters.
However, as we has also seen all too often, even the best safety equipment will not help keep a worker from being injured or killed if their employer is not willing to provide this new equipment to his or her employees. For this reason, we urge all employers to take time to research the best safety equipment and spend the money to purchase it, because this can save lives. It can also save the company money in the long run, because every serious accident avoided means less workers’ compensation benefits to pay out, less production stoppages or slowdowns, and less safety inspections to have to deal with following a serious accident.
If you are injured on the job in Massachusetts, call Jeffrey Glassman Injury Lawyers for a free and confidential consultation to discuss your workers’ compensation claim: (617) 777-7777.
Additional Resources:
Optimizing Worker Safety: It’s in the Lights, State-of-the-art flashlights protect against workplace hazards, September 01, 2015, OSH Online, by Dawn Dalldorf-Jackson
More Blog Entries:
Frith v. WSI – Proving Worsening Condition Is Related to Work Injury, May 27, 2014, Boston Workers’ Compensation Lawyers Blog