We love to investigate Cricket Media traditions, from why kids send pictures of their pets for SPIDER Magazine to &#;adopt&#; to MUSE Magazine&#;s legend of the hot pink bunnies. Today, we&#;re diving into another surprising phenomenon from our history: guardrails. Yes, guardrails. You heard us correctly. Those bits of metal and cement that keep cars from driving off the road. The September issue of ASK features an article called &#;Highway Guide to Guardrails,&#; showcasing the differences between different types of highway barriers and their advantages. But it&#;s not the first time we&#;ve published an article on that topic!
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Way back in the October issue of MUSE Magazine, then-editor Diana Lutz suggested an article on guardrails. She said,
&#; When I suggested this article, my fellow editors thought the topic was too geeky even for Muse. But I was hooked. I found it fascinating that the design of a guardrail varied with the job it had to do. If you knew this, you could read a secret highway code everyone else missed.
In the end, we agreed to run the article with a humor piece making fun of it. Now, looking back after nine years, I consider &#;Crash!&#; a kind of touchstone for Muse-worthiness. If you can see that guardrails are interesting and laugh at yourself for fi nding guardrails interesting, then Muse is the magazine for you.&#;
&#; Diana Lutz
Surprisingly, the resulting article, &#;Crash!&#; by David L. Wheeler, was a hit. They paired with a funny quiz that asks, &#;Are you guardrail crazy?&#; It includes true/false questions including such worrying scenarios as:
Do you show any worrying signs of being a guardrail fanatic? Check out the full quiz here to find out.
Apparently, some MUSE readers must have truly been guardrail crazy, because October was only the start of guardrail-mania. In January , MUSE published a special 10th anniversary issue featuring some of MUSE&#;s most iconic articles in its history. Topics included vegetarianism, the secret of the Damascus sword, an origami hot pink bunny craft, and&#; guardrails!
One fan named Haley even wrote into MUSE Mail later that year with an original poem about guardrails:
&#;Guardrails are like rubber bands
They sit there in the sands
But when a car comes falling
They never go off crawling
Or slink away down a hill
And make the car take a spill
Instead they forgive and bend,
Stopping the crashing trend
And preventing a nasty hospital bill.&#;
If nothing else, it&#;s definitely the most beautiful poem about guardrails we&#;ve ever heard!
Now, 22 years after guardrails first graced the pages of MUSE and 13 years after their triumphant return, guardrails are finally back on our pages&#; this time in ASK!
What makes them so interesting? MUSE asked a genuine, non-ironic guardrail fanatic: civil engineering professor Richard McGinnis, who identifies guardrails the way that an avid birdwatcher identifies birds. In a pinch, Professor McGinnis can tell you what kind of guardrail you&#;re liking at, why it&#;s used, and how it would help keep drivers safe. He knows why a guardrail is used in a certain situation and how it would work to protect drivers.
For example, some guardrails are created with a &#;forgiving&#; design that barely damages cars but may let them travel farther. Others are &#;unforgiving&#; and stop a car right in its tracks, but cause more damage. Why would you sometimes want one versus the other? Maybe there&#;s a steep ditch off the road, or traffic going in an opposite direction. You&#;d probably want the &#;unforgiving&#; guardrail that would keep drivers from an even more dangerous situation than a ruined car. Maybe there&#;s a meadow or a wide shoulder on the side of the road. A weaker guardrail that would cause less damage to passengers would be useful here.
Once you learn to spot a few styles of guardrail in the wild, we guarantee you won&#;t be able to stop doing it! And you can thank both MUSE and ASK for keeping guardrail-mania alive!
Learn to identify different kinds of guardrails in &#;Highway Guide to Guardrails&#; from ASK
Discover a genuine MUSE blast from the past in the article that started it all, &#;Crash!&#;
Want more information on customized w beam highway guardrail? Feel free to contact us.
The history of fall protection includes gradual changes in safe work practices, innovative equipment, and regulations to keep people safe. Implementing practices to eliminate or reduce a fall hazard to keep employees safe developed over time.
Creation and utilization of passive fall protection equipment and personal fall protection equipment grew over time as well. Before the Occupational Health and Safety Act was established, fall prevention and protection in the workplace was largely unregulated. As we examine the history of fall protection, it is abundantly clear that fall protection has evolved over the years.
Consider the American Industrial Revolution, with dangerous working conditions in factories, where machines and power sources were largely unguarded. Production methods were often extremely dangerous. Competition encouraged businesses to increase output, while there was little interest in improving safety.
Nearly 24 million immigrants arrived in the United States in the late &#;s through early &#;s, some living and working in cities. The cost of land in cities encouraged the building of skyscrapers which required many men to work at unprotected heights. The construction industry had limited fall protection equipment.
Those injured on the job or their heirs after a fatal accident might sue for damages, but it was challenging to win. Courts generally denied employer liability.
There were injuries and deaths. Imagine facing work hazard after work hazard while working in factories without safety practices. Further, imagine working at heights without fall protection equipment such as a lanyard, guardrail, or safety gate. There are still dangerous working conditions across the US today.
The state of Massachusetts was the first U.S. state to implement safety and health legislation in . Laws required safety precautions such as guards, shafts and gears, and adequate fire exits. In the subsequent 13 years, nine more states required regular factory inspections, testing, and equipment compliance such as guards to protect people from safety hazards.
In , U.S. worker&#;s compensation laws were established. Instead of requiring injured workers to go to court, suing for damages, these laws allowed for a fixed rate compensation. This compensation appealed to employers because it reduced conflicts with people working for them and made costs more predictable.
The National Council for Industrial Safety, now known as the National Safety Council, formed in collected information and developed programs to prevent accidents. There were approximately 23,000 industrial deaths in a workforce of about 38 million in .
The construction of San Francisco&#;s Golden Gate Bridge began in the &#;s. At the time of construction, expectations were that one person would die for every $1 million spent. Joseph Strauss, chief project engineer, implemented revolutionary safety practices for that time. Strauss required workers to wear hard hats and safety belts with tie off lines and to use respirators during riveting.
Three years into construction, Strauss invested more than $130,000 for a rope-and-mesh safety net suspended under the bridge. This net gave those working on the bridge confidence to move across the construction of the bridge&#;s roadway and prevented deadly falls. Nineteen men accidentally fell into the net and survived. On February 16, , a five ton platform collapsed, ripping through the net. As a result, 12 men fell 220 feet into the water. Ten of the 12 workers died from the fall. Only 11 workers died during the entire project, but without the net and other safety requirements, that number could have been much higher.
Strauss&#; original plan included safety railing installation to prevent suicides from the Golden Gate Bridge. According to Strauss&#; guardrail plan: &#;five feet, six inches high and are so constructed that any persons on the pedestrian walk could not get a handhold to climb over them.&#; Architect Irving Morrow adjusted the designs, lowering the handrail and spacing rail posts further apart from one another. As a result, when the bridge opened in May , the guardrails were only four feet high.
Manufacturers developed fall protection products to improve safety. A body belt, inspired by equipment worn by rock-climbers, was the standard fall protection system of the &#;s. But users had to manually tie and retie lines. In the event of a fall, the user ran a risk of the belt slipping over their shoulders.
A better option of fall protection was introduced in the &#;s: a safety harness. Inspired by military paratroopers in World War II, a safety harness offered an alternative to a body belt. In , The American Rolling Mill Company developed steel guardrail as a highway guardrail. While originally intended for highways, industrial and manufacturing environments also use guardrails.
Throughout construction safety history, fall restraint and fall arrest equipment continued to improve. From a full body harness which wraps around a person&#;s waist, shoulders, and legs to including a D-ring on the center of the back to provide a fall arrest connecting point. A flexible horizontal lifeline like rope or cable system were expanded to include a horizontal anchor fall protection system (an enclosed track system).
As personal fall arrest systems evolved, the introduction of self retracting lifelines contributed to reducing fall distances, slowing speed of falls, and preventing injuries. Other engineering advances contributing to the history of fall protection includes development of vertical lifeline systems to provide those who perform vertical climbing tasks with a safe and reliable personal fall arrest system.
More recently, there is safety innovation and technology such as 3D modeling. 3D modeling and use of emerging virtual reality modeling can provide a virtual representation of building or spaces to help plan for scaffolding, safe access, and safe tie off locations as well as planning for prevention of common accidents.
OSHA took effect in to ensure a safe work environment by establishing and enforcing standards and by providing training, education, and assistance. Goals include focusing its resources to reduce injuries, illnesses, and deaths in the workplace. In , there were about 14,000 U.S. workplace fatalities. In , a total of 5,333 workers died from a work-related injury. Many of these deaths resulted in falling, which is why roof safety railings now play such a key role.
Employers are incentivized to address any potential workplace fall hazard to avoid fines for regulation noncompliance. Modern personal fall arrest equipment designs minimize injury in the event of a fall, and OSHA requires training on how to use the equipment.
There&#;s a revision history of OSHA fall protection standards to consider as well. In , OSHA provided notice for standard updates impacting fall protection in the construction industry. OSHA issued the new Subpart M Fall Protection Standard in .
Subsequently, OSHA&#;s Subpart M Fall Protection Standard applies when workers are working at heights of 6 feet or more above a lower level. It also includes requirements for protection from falling objects, falls from tripping or falling through holes, and protection when walking and working around dangerous equipment. Subpart M requires employers to provide OSHA compliant fall protection systems like a safety gate, metal roof guardrails, flat roof railings, or a system to tether or restrain workers to protect workers from edges.
Further, OSHA updated its Walking-Working Surfaces Standards in . As a result, since OSHA&#;s inception, attitudes about workplace safety changed. Fall protection became a larger priority. Industries began to see value in passive and active fall protection for employees.
The history of fall protection includes tremendous advances in worker safety practices and training, fall prevention and protection equipment, and safety regulations. Today&#;s fall protection equipment, including fall arrest and fall restraint systems, meet rigorous industry standards. You can read our coverage on specific topics such as OSHA guardrail requirements, or reach out to us directly to help you identify potential hazards and meet safety standards.
Contact the team at EDGE Fall Protection to find help regarding all your safety solutions. We&#;ll listen to the needs of your business or facility, and recommend the best products to protect those who work for you.
Are you interested in learning more about Customized Steel Structure for Guardrail? Contact us today to secure an expert consultation!