OSHA fines for electrical violations

[mark handler]

https://www.google.com/search?redir_esc=&client=tablet-android-samsung&hl=en-US&safe=images&q=Construction%20Laborer%20Electrocuted&source=android-browser-type&qsubts=1388527955943&action=devloc#hl=en-US&q=Construction+Laborer+Electrocuted+extension+cord

Try this link

 

[MASSDRIVER]

https://www.google.com/search?redir_esc=&client=tablet-android-samsung&hl=en-US&safe=images&q=Construction%20Laborer%20Electrocuted&source=android-browser-type&qsubts=1388527955943&action=devloc#hl=en-US&q=Construction+Laborer+Electrocuted+extension+cordTry this link

I like dialoging with Mark. It makes me think critically. So I'm scanning through all these links and it turns out there are maybe 3 documented cases of electrocution by extension cord, damaged or not. A huge majority of electrocutions are from lifting apparatus contacting overhead lines.

So just googling "extension cord fatalities", but not reading through your own results would leave you to believe there are hundreds of electrocutions, when there are statistically zero.

What is striking is what can be done to prevent some of those fatalities. One is don't let a laborer touch ANYTHING. Especially if it has electrons running through it, or it is something you really like. A hard and fast rule to live by.

Second, don't let supervisors touch anything with electrons running through it, or you really like. If you see some dude in dockers, polo shirt, giant steel toed Redwing boots and a white hard hat heading for you stuff, throw a hammer at him, use the command "STOP!", and you may save his life. Another hard and fast rule. I'm sure this would apply to visiting architects as well.

Third, and I gather this from the specific descriptions of accidents by the OSHA websites, don't be Hispanic. That is, apparently, a deadly thing to be.

So, from cursory analysis of this material, we can be pretty sure that extension cords, used by construction workers in normal practice, whether damaged or not, are safer than eating hotdogs, which kill 77 kids on average every year.

It would make more sense to ban hot dogs from lunch pails at work than to worry about one frayed extension cord.

We could say there is a better chance winning the lottery while engaged in a 3-way with Scarlett Johanson and Marilyn Monroe than being electrocuted by a frayed extension cord. And that's knowing Marilyn is dead which drastically increases the odds even more.

So why is OSHA so vehement about extension cords? Because they are an easy target. A lot easier than keeping some window licker from trying to plug a skilsaw into an air compressor apparently.

Brent.

 

[conarb]

Where do OSHA fines go, into the government agencies to hire more worthless people incapable of producing anything?

 

[jar546]

MASSDRIVER, I can honestly say your logic and thinking is based on the extremely small, limited world that you live in and does not take into consideration what really happens and has happened in the world. As a person who started volunteering on an ambulance well over 20 years ago and eventually worked as a paramedic then critical care flight paramedic, there is no shortage of work related injuries and deaths due to faulty extension cords. Not all deaths and injuries are catalogued on a national database accessible to the public. OSHA is not called in on every single case out there,.......really. It is my personal opinion that you are extremely narrow minded in your thinking and suffer from tunnel vision based solely on what extremely limited knowledge you have about what goes on in the rest of the world. It is apparent (or appears to me anyway) that you don't like rules, regulations or authority. There is nothing wrong with that and you are entitled to your opinions but you are not, however, judge jury and executioner of all subjects, as none of us are. My little world as a flight paramedic was expanded from 2 counties as a ground paramedic to almost 60. It is amazing what you see when your horizons are expanded on a first hand basis. When I was covering 2 counties on the ground there were quite a few things that I never saw, thought about or even knew were actually happening. Covering with a helicopter opened my eyes as we were not being called to critical cases in a much larger area and that, my friend, is just a small little part of the country in the northeast, and only part of 1 of 50 states.

What I am trying to say is that you don't know what you don't know but don't recognize that.

In my small, limited little neck of the woods I have had more than my share of severely injured and dead construction workers due to various reasons that involved electricity(including extension cords), lack of seat belts (even in a skid steer or forklift), blind spots, wind, poor judgement of others, trenches, lack of railings, no safety harnesses, failed equipment such as scaffolding, etc, etc, etc.

You may be perfect in every way in your own mind but not all of society lives and works at your level. We are all different, at all different levels of intelligence, skill and socio-economic levels. These horrible, wasteful rules, as you think, are here for the protection of the public, including those too young to know any better and yes, they come at a cost. Suck it up and get used to it. As I told someone else, Somolia has very little regulation and great weather if you don't like it here. Not everything is perfect and if you want to live here and be a citizen and enjoy all of the good stuff, it comes at a cost. It is, however a choice.

 

[jar546]

Where do OSHA fines go, into the government agencies to hire more worthless people incapable of producing anything?

Such optimism. I love your forward thinking. Hard to believe that every person in a government agency is worthless.

 

[jwelectric]

Such optimism. I love your forward thinking. Hard to believe that every person in a government agency is worthless.

Hey Jar, I work for the government and my wife tells me all the time that I am worthless. There are even a few electrical contractors that have called the office and said that I was worthless. Now that is funny I don’t care who you are.

 

[ICE]

Hard to believe that every person in a government agency is worthless.

It's more like 60-40.

 

[MASSDRIVER]

MASSDRIVER, I can honestly say your logic and thinking is based on the extremely small, limited world that you live in and does not take into consideration what really happens and has happened in the world. As a person who started volunteering on an ambulance well over 20 years ago and eventually worked as a paramedic then critical care flight paramedic, there is no shortage of work related injuries and deaths due to faulty extension cords. Not all deaths and injuries are catalogued on a national database accessible to the public. OSHA is not called in on every single case out there,.......really. It is my personal opinion that you are extremely narrow minded in your thinking and suffer from tunnel vision based solely on what extremely limited knowledge you have about what goes on in the rest of the world. It is apparent (or appears to me anyway) that you don't like rules, regulations or authority. There is nothing wrong with that and you are entitled to your opinions but you are not, however, judge jury and executioner of all subjects, as none of us are. My little world as a flight paramedic was expanded from 2 counties as a ground paramedic to almost 60. It is amazing what you see when your horizons are expanded on a first hand basis. When I was covering 2 counties on the ground there were quite a few things that I never saw, thought about or even knew were actually happening. Covering with a helicopter opened my eyes as we were not being called to critical cases in a much larger area and that, my friend, is just a small little part of the country in the northeast, and only part of 1 of 50 states.What I am trying to say is that you don't know what you don't know but don't recognize that.

In my small, limited little neck of the woods I have had more than my share of severely injured and dead construction workers due to various reasons that involved electricity(including extension cords), lack of seat belts (even in a skid steer or forklift), blind spots, wind, poor judgement of others, trenches, lack of railings, no safety harnesses, failed equipment such as scaffolding, etc, etc, etc.

You may be perfect in every way in your own mind but not all of society lives and works at your level. We are all different, at all different levels of intelligence, skill and socio-economic levels. These horrible, wasteful rules, as you think, are here for the protection of the public, including those too young to know any better and yes, they come at a cost. Suck it up and get used to it. As I told someone else, Somolia has very little regulation and great weather if you don't like it here. Not everything is perfect and if you want to live here and be a citizen and enjoy all of the good stuff, it comes at a cost. It is, however a choice.

Now you're just being silly. I am thinking, however, I should move not to Somolia, but your neck of the woods. It sounds like the Wild West out there, no codes, no accessibility, everyone telling you to shove it, people dying left and right from electricity, wild forklifts, and evil robber barons.

I guess Kalifornia IS a regulated haven of wonderfulness and unbounded joy.

I mean, it's not even snowing right now.

But we all judge things by observation. If a member is allowed to throw out rote and links, another member can look for verification.

All workers comp claims are reported to OSHA for review or investigation so we should be able to see some correlation in data reported. If not, then my here say is as good as yours. Apparently you piled up bodies like cordwood from the Great Construction Death Plaque of '06.

We didn't see that out here on the golden coast.

And really, do you believe any of that you wrote? That's like the bad part of every political philosophy rolled into one guy.

Brent

 

[ICE]

OSHA is not called in on every single case out there

I worked in construction for a long time. I witnessed all manner of serious accident. The majority were saws and falls. Framers and nail guns were assured mayhem. There was a guy that was found hanging by his hand which was shot to a floor joist. Every now and then a finger would go flying by. I hope your not eating lunch fatboy.

Two memorable happenings were electrical. Both were arc flash. On one it was like the Sun was pulled out of the switch gear. The dummy looked just like a burnt Phil Spector. He was one of those guys that it's hard to feel sorry for.

We were electrically deficient. There were always tools to light us up. We worked all year long. Rain or shine you had a steel handled worm drive. Now and then you had trouble letting go. When a Pettibone ran over a cord and buried it in its tracks, we left it there...we used it until we couldn't. We worked smart as we were able. If a cord needed tape, we unplugged it first.

The only accident that OSHA showed up for was a fatality. A guy who was long past climbing, fell off a roof that he was sheathing. It turned out that he had a heart attack while in the wrong place for having a heart attack. After that everyone over fifty was grounded.

OSHA came out on random inspections. I remember every one of those visits. The company owner would find me with the order to "clean" the place for OSHA. I would then grab a chain saw and dykes; scour the site for homemade ladders, scaffolds and roof jacks. Saw guards were unpinned and if I found one with no guard, Shirley the dykes handled that. We became safe in thirty minutes. We had lots of tools with six inch cords.

OSHA had time for that but a 100 stitch injury went unnoticed.

OSHA's rules have grown exponentially since my last time in the saddle. At a recent pre-job meeting, a safety officer went on for thirty minutes. A Ramset can get you jail time. Half way into this guy's spiel I figured we might as well call the whole thing off.

I found it odd that as the rules were laid out, the fine was stated. A worn cord might be $3000, a crap ladder is $6500. Then there is the triple threat. If an employee frays a cord and keeps using it; three levels of contractor can get the fine.

I wouldn't trust OSHA for statistics.

 

[MASSDRIVER]

We also have cal OSHA

Brent

 

[ICE]

We also have cal OSHA Brent

Much of my experience is with Cal/OSHA. You'll never meet a nicer bunch of guys. They even call ahead.

 

[conarb]

Much of my experience is with Cal/OSHA. You'll never meet a nicer bunch of guys. They even call ahead.

I got fined $55 once in 1972 by them, toilet paper empty in a porta-potty building a control building in the Richmond Standard Oil refinery (now Chevron).

We have so much regulation and such heavy taxation that Tim Draper (net worth $8B) is putting an initiative on the ballot to split California into 6 states, including the free state of Silicon Valley. I'm voting for it (maybe even Sue will come back if she gets Jefferson) but predict it won't win, even if it does their are constitutional issues.

A more creative approach is a movement for Silicon Valley to secede from the United States because of over-taxation and over-regulation impeding our creativity. Balaji S. Srinivasan's Y Combinator address was a siren call for secession, he labels the east coast as the dead paper belt much like the midwest dead rust belt, New York's money industry damn near destroyed the world, Boston's educational industry has destroyed education with Harvard, Yale, and Princeton giving all A's instead of segregating the winners from the losers, and Washington DC's regulation industry turning the United States into a third world economy.

A good example of this is the home I recently built for a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, I allowed $100,000 for Special Inspections, after paying the special inspections he asked why all these levels of inspections? The structural engineer was from Europe and told him that in Europe all inspectors have welding certifications, almost no U.S. inspectors have welding certifications (many don't even have college degrees which he found unbelievable), he then wanted to know what the city inspectors did? I told him nothing really, the raison d'être of permits was money to pay salaries, benefits, and pensions of public employees, and now to provide affordable housing for the poor and ignorant, but the inspectors were nice guys, the fight here is with the SEs in plan check, after that the field inspections are just scheduled progress visits, I would just bring out the 4 bundles of 125 pages of plans and shop drawings, watch for their eyes to glaze over and then give them the card to sign along with a three-ring binder of ES Reports, UL Approvals, Installation Instructions, and Certifications for those required to have them working on the job. From the pictures Jeff has posted I can't believe that areas of this country can be so far behind us, but it must be nice to have so little regulation that you argue for more instead of so much regulation that you want to secede from the whole damn country.

 

[MASSDRIVER]

It's funny. I'm been visited maybe 25 times, and maybe 5 times on my own jobs. I never really had an issue as I try to maintain to standards as much as I know how. My own cords are always tiptop, my guards work, I posted safety requirements, had tailgate meetings, and ICE himself would be proud to walk up any of my ladders, phobia free.

But I saw some real lulus when I was piece working and thought they were being awfully sketchy on some citations. But the worst part is what happens like in Conarb's case. "Hey, how 'bout I just put a roll of sh1t-tickets in there? Nope. $55 please. Ain't right Tater.

I am curious though how I get branded a total anti-government, anti-regulation Somolia lovin' perfect world guy?

I simply think, and I doubt I'm the only one, that there comes a point where you have to regulate the regulators. We can't even broach the subject if maybe we can throttle back a little?

How about if just stopped where we are at?

Everytime I see one of these articles I try to look through it, and read between the lines, and it just gets me thinking if it's legit or not. I was just kind of picking on the extension cord thing because of the overbearing handwringing of it, but if you read the links Jar provided you can see there are some very real dangers that were ignored. Factories and manufacturing centers can be ruthless maneaters, and may not be populated by rocket surgeons.

So I'm not some libertarian whack trying to live in the 1840's wild west.

So when someone says hundreds of fatal electrocutions happen every year, then posts links that lack evidence of that, I start to wonder. I wonder why I never saw one instance since about 1983.

Jar says he saw it often. I believe it, but are we talking just generel electrocutions, or jobsite infractions supposedly under the perview of OSHA? Cause that's what we are talking about right?

And if OSHA has no statistics on injuries how do they justify their regulatory authority? If frayed extension cords(by the way, some of those fines were for using ANY EXTENSION CORD, EVEN IN GOOD CONDITION!) warrent such hefty fines, where is the proof of there danger?

We can all sit here and tell stories.

I mean, don't you guys ever think about stuff like that at all?

Brent.

 

[ICE]

If a member is allowed to throw out rote and links, another member can look for verification.

What gets Jeff wound up is you poking Mark in the eye. Mark is used to a little more respect than you have mustered so far. He's been indoors a lot.....he reckons you to be a tough, grizzled roustabout and he just doesn't know how to respond. Give them time and they will figure it out.

Sit back and relax like we were still working in Chico. By the way Mark catches on quicker than Jeff so this might take a while.

 

[mark handler]

ICE

I don’t have an issue with the debate when the retort is intelligent and not just the same old debunked arguments

I do have issue with the FU bombs and the personal attacks

I think we all. including me, can Treat others with respect; follow the Golden Rule • Be tolerant and accepting of differences • Use good manners, not bad language • Be considerate of of others • Don’t threaten anyone • respond calmly with anger, insults, and disagreements -

Remember image projected is image reflected

 

[MASSDRIVER]

I too am used to being respected more than what's mustered. I deserve it as much as Mark does. That's because a person earns it, it's not an entitlement.

There has been no debunking in general of my opinions. What there has been is dismissive ness couched in emotion and lack of facts to back it up.

Believe me, I know the forum I'm in. I know that what I may bring up can be less than comfortable to think about if your in the industry. So I expect to be blown out of the water with intelligent argument, but that's not what happens.

On top if that, it helps to have a sense of humor. I may get personal but not much, only because it's ongoing. Don't get nasty (and Mark got real nasty, and knows it).

But I hate to get my peepee spanked again, so back on track.

How dangerous are OSHA inspectors on job sites?

Brent

 

[mjesse]

I do have issue with the FU bombs and the personal attacks

Just an FYI... "Google-Fu" is internet slang for an adept ability in using Google Search, ala "Kung-Fu", only regarding your web prowess.

What you may have read as an insult, was actually a sideways compliment.

mj

 

[mark handler]

Brent

I too will need to work on the attitude thing, But as I said, image projected, is image reflected.

 

[Frank]

While many of the worker electrocutions are from contacting overhead power lines there are a number resulting from faulty cords etc.

This is why faulty cords are on OSHA's hot list.

Some incidents mentioned in NIOSH report http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/docs/98-131/pdfs/98-131.pdf

86-28 Worker electrocuted while using a 110V auger to install tie-down rods for a manufactured

home. Auger had no continuous grounding system. Co-worker received shock, after which

auger fell across victim, electrocuting him.

86-36 Carpenter electrocuted when portable electric saw apparently developed a ground fault.

Engaged in construction of laundry building for apartment complex

88-41 Electrician working in crawlspace electrocuted when his shoulder contacted a broken light bulb

in an unguarded ceiling-mounted socket, and his head contacted a steel water pipe. Engaged in

tracing wiring at a tobacco manufacturing plant.

89-19 Maintenance mechanic at meat packing plant electrocuted when he contacted a strapping

machine power cord with damaged insulation. Current passed through victim to wet floor.

91-05 Construction laborer electrocuted when he apparently contacted a damaged extension cord

that became energized. Constructing waterfront bulkhead for residence at edge of lake.

 

[Frank]

Electricution deaths from normal voltage may also be underreported.

We all know people who have been bit on the job and although did not feel right for a while shook it off and did not report the injury.

I have seen this before too--

Middle aged Joe gets bit bad electrically and is knocked down but gets right back up going ouch that stung on the jobsite and then is not feeling too good. Boss says Joe why dont you take the rest of the afternoon off and get some rest, see you in the morning. No injury report filled out. Joe has fatal heart attack later that evening at home. Sorry about Joe's heart attack, but we still have perfect safety record. Medical establishment likely never hears of the electric shock injury and therefore seditary overweight Joe is just one more heart attack statistic, not an on the job fatality.

 

[Daddy-0-]

Some of the insurance safety inspectors are even worse. We had one with a belt buckle that was so big it would knock you off of the four legged ladders!