Rochester-based American Packaging has been an OSHA VPP Star site locally for several years. Now, the safety excellence bug has spread to the Story City, Iowa plant that passed the rigorous requirements during an OSHA inspection on June 16. Story City has had no recordable injuries for the past year and has had no DART cases for the past three! If you'd like to know more about the OSHA VPP program, just send me an e-mail.

With the price of gasoline at record levels, alternative forms of transportation are gaining favor. Motorcycling is one of them. However, this information from the University of California, Berkeley "Wellness Letter" suggests the need for a discussion of motorcycle safety with employees who chose that form of transportation. Reportedly, federal data shows that motorcycles account for two percent of the vehicles on the road, but 10 percent of all traffic fatalities! Nearly half of riders killed are age 40 or older (up from 9 percent in 1985) and a quarter are 50 or older. For help, check out the Motorcycle Safety Foundation here. For many more safety training options, just enter "motorcycle safety" into Google.

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission has announced a voluntary recall of HP Fax 1010 and 1010xi Machines. About 367,000 units sold in the US between 2002 and 2004 have been found to pose a risk of burn or fire due to an internal electrical component failure, To see this recall on CPSC's web site, including a picture of the recalled product, click here.

On Nov. 24, 2008, a new federal regulation (23 CFR 634) goes into effect mandating that anyone working in the right-of-way of a federal-aid highway must be wearing high-visibility clothing that meets the requirements of ANSI /ISEA 107; 2004 edition class 2 or 3. This requirement will apply to all emergency responders. Stories that accompany this notice make it clear that high-visibility clothing is essential for anyone working on any highway. Just this morning, I passed a mother and her son biking on the shoulder of a busy rural highway in dark clothing in daylight and I was struck at how difficult it was to see them with all the competing vehicles and images along the road. If you have any people who must spend time in the roadway, consider this notice as guidance for you. For details, click here.

In the study by Circadian, 46 male train drivers with an average age of 46.5 years old were recruited to participate in a diary study for 14 consecutive days with questions about their sleep and working hours. During the course of the study, shift-start times ranging from 3 a.m. to Noon were recorded. The longest sleeps of approximately eight hours occurred before shifts that started at approximately 10 a.m. The shortest sleeps were found for shifts that started before 4:30 p.m. and were approximately five hours in length. The study concluded that delaying shift-start time progressively later between 4:30 a.m. and 9 a.m. had a strong impact on sleep length, with 70 percent of the extra time being used for sleep. For more on the study, click here.

Working from home or away from the organization has become more and more common. With technology such as phones, fax machines, computers and the Internet, it is easy for employees to stay in touch with their companies. And with this type of work arrangement there are some important points to consider regarding the worker's health and safety. For a look at hazards and solutions from the Canadian Center for Occupational Health and Safety, click here.