According to the Governors Highway Safety Association (GHSA) driving the speed limit saves lives and money. Aggressive driving can lower gas mileage by 33 percent at highway speeds and 5 percent in town. Each 5 MPH driven above 60 MPH is equivalent to paying an extra 20 cents per gallon for gasoline. Other research shows that a 1 percent decrease in travel speed reduces injury crashes by 2 percent, serious crashes by 3 percent and fatal crashes by 4 percent. Clearly, the numbers show the wisdom of requiring company drivers to stay within the posted speed limit and encouraging employees driving on their own time to do the same.

A new federal law, recently signed by the president, will go into effect next year. The Children's Gasoline Burn Prevention Act requires portable gasoline containers manufactured for sale in the U.S. on or after January 17, 2009 to conform to child resistance safety requirements. Gasoline containers will join containers for other flammable liquids, such as turpentine, charcoal lighter fluid, and torch fuel that are required to have child resistant closures. The CPSC has jurisdiction over child resistant product packaging. No details yet on the nature of the closures.

In three recent trench collapses, OSHA's compliance safety and health officers were instrumental in preventing injury while conducting inspections under OSHA's Local and National Emphasis Programs. CSHO Gary Weil of OSHA's Chicago North area office conducted an NEP trench inspection in Wheeling, Ill. Immediately after opening the inspection, an employee exited an unprotected trench, which moments later collapsed. Another unsafe trench was evacuated just before it collapsed on the recommendation of CSHO Ken Montgomery of the Cincinnati area office. CSHOs Alan Angle and Chad Greenwood of the Madison, Wis., area office asked a construction company employer to clear its employees from two hazardous excavations, both of which collapsed just minutes afterward. No one was injured in any of these incidents. OSHA's Working Safely in Trenches QuickCardŽ (English/Spanish) is a resource for identifying and preventing safety hazards associated with trenching.

According to FEMA, con artist are posing as FEMA personnel in order to bilk people in flood and other disaster zones. For tips from FEMA on how to deal with such threats, click here.

NIOSH now offers an online library to house resources from around the world related to the prevention of road traffic injuries and deaths while at work. The resources, which include employer policies and guidance documents on road safety at work, research reports on risk factors for work-related crashes, as well as statistics about worker injuries and fatalities on roads, are stored in the "Road Safety at Work" online library (click here).

OSHA is about to recognize its 2,000th Voluntary Protection Programs (VPP) site which will join the elite group of employers recognized by OSHA for having exemplary safety and health management systems. Membership in VPP has been growing rapidly in recent years, with several Rochester Business Alliance companies now counted among the ranks of the safest companies in America.

Unless you've lived in deep isolation for the past few months, you know that the price of gasoline is causing widespread consternation. Some responses are illegal (drive-offs and punching holes in gas tanks, for example). Others are simply unwise and unsafe. If you're looking for a timely topic for the next safety meeting, consider addressing the obvious and not so obvious actions that have gotten other folks in trouble so far in the crisis. One is stocking up with extra gasoline in the trunk, back seat or truck bed. For the most part, small gasoline containers are not designed or built to withstand road shock and crashes. Another is filling a portable container while in the vehicle. Spills aside, static between ungrounded container and nozzle can cause an explosion as it did recently in Texas where a truck was destroyed and the driver badly burned. Of course, we all know not to use a match or lighter to look into a gas tank to check the quantity inside, but reports continue to flow in of people doing just that with disastrous consequences.