TJP

It is imperative to improve the safety record of the Washington DC transit system. The system has suffered a string of worker and passenger fatalities and injuries. Often organizations with safety problems are plagued by internal systemic problems that can only be solved by improving internal administrative capacity.

Internal operating process must be capable of preventing accidents. Accidents are preventable, they occur because appropriate safety processes are not in place.

The recent accident in which two workers died was indeed preventable. According to the Associated Press, the workers, Sung Oh and Jeff Garrand, were installing safety equipment on the track closed to regular service when a reversing vehicle hit them. They also noted that a near miss occurred the previous month to a team of inspectors.

The Washington Post reported than none of the four workers in the reversing vehicle were injured. Thus, it appears that the reversing vehicle failed to use a flagman (banksman), which is a designated person whose task is to assure the reversing area is free of obstacles. Moreover, apparently the reversing vehicle was not equipped with automatic audible reversing alarms or visible flashing lights. In every work environment, reversing alarms should be an integral part of movable work equipment.

Thus, safety operational considerations of the Metro work assignment, safety training of supervisors and workers appear to have been lacking. For instance, aside from closing the tracks, the section where work is being performed should have been locked out. Meaning that vehicles could not physically access that section of tracks. And, there should be a written lockout procedure authorized by Metro supervision.

Many private organizations and governments institute robust safety reversing vehicles procedures that prevents injuries. The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) of the United Kingdom (UK) notes in Reversing Vehicles that nearly a quarter of all deaths involving vehicles at work occur while the vehicle is reversing. As a result they issued Workplace Transport Safety: An Employer’s Guide HSG136.

By law in the UK (Workplace Transport Safety), employers have a duty to protect the health and safety of their employees and ensure that members of the public are not put at risk as a result of the work that they do.

The Washington Metro system has had a number of unacceptable injuries and deaths in the past four years. On June 23, 2009, ABC News 7 reported that nine passengers were killed and 76 injured when a Metro train slammed into the back of a stopped train on the Red Line.

Injuries and deaths are unacceptable in any organization, particular when they result from systemic problems due to poor organizational capacity. Poor organizational capacity starts at the highest level of an organization. Thus, it is paramount for Metro Board to infuse itself with experienced personnel from private industries where safety is paramount, such as the chemical and petrochemical industries. The organization’s culture of safety starts at the highest level of organizations.

SAVE DARFUR