Good situational awareness is essential in any high-risk workplace. Accidents happen in the blink of an eye, often with little or no warning, making it vital for workers to maintain a strong sense of the hazards around them. The danger is significantly increased when vehicles and pedestrians operate close to one another, creating a greater need to ensure enhanced situational awareness in these locations.
What is situational awareness?
Situational awareness is of critical importance in high-risk industries. Government guidance for the UK Maritime and Coastguard Agency defines situational awareness as:
“Knowing what is going on around you in the present, as well as the potential influence of different factors in the near future”, and describes three main factors that affect situational awareness as being:
- Perception: do you recognise what is happening?
- Understanding: do you understand the potential impact of what is happening?
- Projection: can you figure out a solution and what might happen next?
Poor situational awareness is often a contributing factor in workplace accidents, so businesses must take measures to encourage and maintain situational awareness among workers.
In busy worksites, such as warehouses, recycling centres, shipyards, and distribution centres, the mix of pedestrians with HGVs, forklifts, shovel loaders, and other vehicles creates a hazardous environment with plenty of potential for accidents. Twenty-five people were killed by being struck by moving vehicles in UK workplaces, according to 2024 HSE figures, a 25% increase from the previous year. Around 1,300 UK workers are seriously injured in forklift accidents alone each year, with approximately 50% of these occurring whilst reversing.
Common Challenges
The nature of industrial work and the need for workplace transport increases the risk. However, many other factors can seriously compromise situational awareness, including:
- Blind Spots – Corners, intersections, stacking, racking, crossings, exits, entryways and loading bays present natural blind spots where visibility is limited. Vehicle blind spots are also a significant issue and are often a problem with forklifts carrying loads where the driver’s view is obstructed.
- Distractions – A busy workplace can be chaotic, with lots of activity going on simultaneously. This can cause distractions, which take the focus away and reduce awareness of the surrounding environment and its risks.
- Complacency – This is a very common problem. Unfortunately, overfamiliarity with the workplace leads to a false sense of security, and workers underestimate the risks around them and lose awareness.
- Fatigue – Long working hours and night shifts lead to tiredness, significantly impacting alertness and reaction times. This makes it harder to maintain good situational awareness and can lead to serious accidents.
- Environment – Poorly lit and loud working environments mask the sound of approaching vehicles and reduce the visibility of signage and warnings.
Improving situational awareness around moving vehicles
- Training: Safety training is mandatory, and situational awareness should always be a key theme of regular safety training sessions. Training not only educates but also arms workers with the skills to recognise and respond to potential hazards.
- Communication: The importance of clear communication can never be underestimated. Effective visual, verbal, or physical communication is essential to safe working practices. Measures should be put in place that actively encourage and enable good communication.
- Segregation: The best way to avoid collisions is to create separate routes for pedestrians and vehicles, but it isn’t always possible. Clear signage, barriers, cones, lighting, and safety technologies that create segregation help reduce the chance of an accident. These efforts significantly increase situational awareness of nearby threats.
Comment ZoneSafe peut aider
It is not unusual for an accident investigation to reveal that serious accidents could have been avoided altogether. Better situational awareness plays a pivotal role in accident prevention.
A ZoneSafe proximity warning system is an effective tool for increasing situational awareness in high-risk workplaces. It has proven to reduce the risk of accidents, helping to improve workplace safety significantly. ZoneSafe immediately alerts vehicle operators and pedestrians when they enter a defined, adjustable detection zone around the vehicle. The audio/visual alarm system even detects and identifies people located around corners, behind obstacles, during poor visibility conditions, and in noisy environments to grab both driver and pedestrian workers’ attention just at the right moment and raise their awareness before a collision occurs.
ZoneSafe active signage significantly increases situational awareness by immediately illuminating and flashing as a vehicle approaches. This draws the eye and attention of nearby pedestrians and encourages them to look around and remove themselves from dangerous situations.
Maintaining good situational awareness can be the difference between life and death in locations where vehicles and pedestrians work in close proximity. Accidents can be avoided by taking action and proactively implementing measures that dramatically increase situational awareness.
Contacter ZoneSafe today to discuss your workplace safety concerns and find out exactly how ZoneSafe will help increase situational awareness on your worksite.
