Safety during the Festive Season
December is a busy time of year for all at Toro Australia. There are added potential risks over the festive period that we need to keep aware of:
Increased Vehicle Traffic on Roads:
- During the 2022-23 Christmas/New Year period, there were 27 lives lost and 990 hospitalisations from road crashes in 11 days across Australia
- Be realistic with your journey times. You will be sharing the roads with lots of other people on the move doing exactly the same as you.
- Be alert and maintain situational awareness.
- Plan rest stops.
- Drive to the conditions.
- Double-check loads. Not just for your safety but for others using the roads as well.
- Minimise distractions in the car (mobile phone, eating, etc).
- Prepare yourself for the journey & be prepared for traffic delays.
Fatigue:
- Fatigue is more than simply feeling tired and/or drowsy. In a work context, fatigue is mental and/or physical exhaustion that reduces the ability to perform work safely and effectively.
Get familiar with the signs of fatigue. They may include:
- tiredness even after sleep
- reduced hand-eye coordination or slow reflexes
- short term memory problems and an inability to concentrate
- blurred vision or impaired visual perception
- a need for extended sleep during days off work.
Meeting End of Year Deadlines:
- Complacency: Don’t become accustomed to doing things a certain way, it can easily make us become oblivious to our surroundings which makes us forget about the hazards & risks associated with the task at hand.
- Don’t be blinded by your success &/or your reasoning that because nothing has gone wrong nothing ever will go wrong.
- The view that “we have been doing it this way for years & we haven’t had any incidents” will inevitably lead to a failure sometime down the track.
- Get in the habit of doing a mental TAKE 5 to every new task you start.
- STOP, Step Back & Think
- Identify The Hazard(s)
- Assess The Level of Risk
- Control The Hazard(s)
- Proceed Safely
