Heavy Equipment Safety Training Includes Personal Safety

How safe are you in the workplace? Do you know what safety equipment is required in the workplace? For heavy equipment operators, working safely has several aspects and while protecting people and property in the vicinity of your work area is important, looking after your health safety is also important. Heavy equipment safety training includes being trained in the requirements and use of personal safety equipment. Some of this training can be completed in a training school while other aspects require on-the-job training, especially where equipment may be specific to that industry – mining is a good example of where industry-specific equipment could be required.

On construction sites, your personal safety equipment could include:

• Footwear such as steel capped work boots
• Hard hats
• Safety clothing, including special brightly colored fluorescent clothing when required
• Safety gloves, especially when working on the heavy equipment; for example, changing tools on backhoes
• Noise prevention and hearing protection
• And eye protection

Most construction sites forbid entry to anyone who is not wearing a hard hat and steel-toed work boots. Even safety inspectors need to meet these requirements before making an inspection. Workplace safety is an important issue and one that our legislators have worked on repeatedly over the years. Employers and employees can face severe fines if they do not meet minimum safety requirements, and, as they say, ignorance of the law cannot be used as a defense.

When undertaking heavy equipment training, be sure to check to see if heavy equipment safety is an important component. This doesn’t just relate to safety modules. It also relates to the reinforcement of safety issues while in the seat learning to operate equipment. Complete the right training and employers will be happy to hire you – if you don’t complete the right training, employers won’t give your application a second look.