Construction Worker Using Portable Toilet Injured After Steel Beam Falls on Him

It has not been a good few months to use portable toilets on a construction job site.  In September, a 28 year old man was run over by a dump truck while using a portable toilet on his job site in Louisiana. A couple months later, another accident involving a portable toilet has happened.

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OSHA Delays Electronic Injury, Illness Reporting Deadline

The controversial Electronic Injury and Illness Reporting rule from OSHA was supposed to go into effect on December 1, 2017, but OSHA has recently delayed that enforcement to allow those affected to become familiar with the new electronic reporting system.

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[VIDEO] Several Injured in NYC After High Winds Cause Scaffolding Collapses

High winds can cause problems in many situations on a job site, especially with cranes and scaffolds.  A horrific crane collapse in downtown New York City was caught on tape after a gust of wind knocked it down in early 2016.  Last week, high winds caused more problems at construction sites, as it knocked over a scaffold above a busy sidewalk and sent a suspended scaffold swinging out of control and crashing into a building.

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Video of Arcing Power Line Shows You Exactly Why To Stay a Safe Distance Away

Contact with overhead power lines is a major hazard when working on most construction sites and especially when working from elevated platforms or with heavy machinery. 

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OSHA Issues Final Rule for Crane Operator Certification Requirements

Back in September, OSHA issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that would extend the deadline for crane operator certification requirements.  Although OSHA 1926.1427 has required crane operators to receive certain certifications to be able to operate the machines since 2010, actual enforcement of that rule has been delayed several times.

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[VIDEO] Semi Hauling 50 Foot Long Prefab Concrete Beam Tips Over in Intersection

As annoying as it may be to deal with sometimes, there is a good reason why trucks carrying oversized loads have spotters and flaggers.  We’ve seen the worst of what can happen when the spotter fails to alert truck drivers in time, like the one that caused a 2013 Washington State bridge collapse, so it’s better to be safe than sorry.

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6 Injured After Partial Roof Collapse at New York City Construction Site

Just one day after Mayor Bill de Blasio signed a new law requiring at least 40 hours of safety training for all 185,000 of the city’s construction workers, a partial roof collapse at a Brooklyn construction site left 6 workers injured, 2 of them serious.

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Researchers Discover Additive to Help Concrete Withstand 9.0 Earthquakes

Concrete is an extremely strong building material, but has a notoriously weak tensile strength.  In order to resist tension, bending, and shear forces, steel rebar or other reinforcement materials are added either prior to the placement or into the mix.  Even with reinforcement, concrete is still extremely rigid and prone to cracking.  In the event of a major earthquake, the uneven and horizontal forces can cause structures to crack and, in the worst case, cause failure.

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