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A view on safety

Anonymously contributed:

I viewed the safety video discussing the fatal accident earlier this year. A few things to note:

Russo makes the statement that "they" are looking at maybe having less pickup trucks and maybe having "Smart Cars". No explanation was forthcoming on why the accident may have been due in any part to the vehicle being a pickup truck. And I am curious, what is a smart car? Is it something along the lines of the car not being able to be started without the seatbelt being buckled? If I recall properly, Detroit tried that and it failed.

But if the lab wants to lay off a few hundred people to provide the funds to retrofit seat belt disconnects in the fleet of cars I'm sure LLNS will jump at it if it enhances the chance of a bonus.

The majority of the video was centered on the use of the seat belt. I have absolutely NO argument about that. We should all be using seat belts. Perhaps with the issuance of tickets to enforce the law requiring the use of them, people will get the idea.

Russo talked about the mix of campus and industrial traffic and suggested deferring deliveries to off hours to prevent the mixing of those big hazardous trucks with people on bikes.

How about getting people off of the cell phones? Especially those that aren't using seat belts.

If you are on a bicycle, be aware that the smallest compact car can take you out.

Or maybe just lower the speed limit to 5 miles an hour and encase us all in 1 foot of foam rubber. With safety glasses, Steel toed shoes and athletic cups for the guys.

If you throw enough regulations out there, you won't need common sense.

Comments

Anonymous said…
What does people on bikes and hazardous trucks got to do with seat belt use? Another B/S knee jerk (or plain jerk) reaction to an
obvious accident. Accidents cannot be totally prevented that is why we call them accidents. So is Russo's idea to make all deliveries at night or only ride bikes at night? And to think just a few short years ago we were a world class research organization.
Anonymous said…
Lets face it, the employee jumped out of the truck with the intention of leaving it running but didnt get it all the way into park. After all he was just rudely told has services were no longer needed so get out... so he was probably pissed off anyway. I myself have failed to get my still running truck into park but I have to confess it usually ends up in neutral and then rolls from there. I have seen employees stop at the NIF gates, leave the engine on, unbuckle the seatbelt and not place the emergency brake on, get out and swipe their badge. I would say we could all take a closer look at our driving habits, it might save your life.... More rules or fai safes arent needed....a little more awareness would be a lot cheaper.
Anonymous said…
the smart car the teflon don is talking about is a electrical vehicle that will not go over 25mph
Anonymous said…
It's all going downhill... FAST! Better buckle up.
Anonymous said…
Smart cars aren't electric. They all have a 1.0 L, 71 HP, 3 cylinder engines. They're just really small. Make them harder to spot, take out more people on bicycles that way...
Anonymous said…
As soon as somebody gets injured in one of those Smart Cars - during a minor fender bender - FR will be swapping out all of the Smart Cars for pick-up trucks, because the trucks are "safer". And so it goes with quick-draw, solution centric managers. It matters not what the problem is.
Anonymous said…
When you don't have real work to do, you do whatever you can.

For those of you who were here in the early 80s, when we were doing one nuclear test a month and had major hardware projects with real hazards all over the Lab, how could we have done that with no ISMS, EMS, Assurance Offices, Authorizatin Basis, DSAs, IWSs, Site Offices, NNSA, etc?

Once the Russians gave up, nuclear weapons lost their importance and so did the Lab.

FR would do better if he concentrated on replacing light bulbs and planned to rake the leaves this fall.
Anonymous said…
Who said the Russians gave up? The country is still there and they are building new weapons.

The US is the only country disarming.

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