The American Ladder Institute (ALI) is sponsoring its fifth annual National Ladder Safety Month to raise awareness of ladder safety and to decrease the number of ladder-related injuries and fatalities both at home and in the workplace.
As I mentioned in last week’s blog, violations related to improper ladder use were number 5 on OSHA’s top 10 most frequently cited standards list for fiscal year 2020.
In addition to the high number of OSHA violations (2,129 in fiscal year 2020), every year there are more than 300 fatalities due to ladder-related accidents and thousands of debilitating injuries. On average, 500,000 people are treated for ladder-related injuries each year! ALI believes ladder accidents are preventable with better safety planning and training as well as continuous innovation in product design.
The goals of National Ladder Safety Month are to:
- Decrease the number of ladder-related injuries and fatalities
- Increase the frequency that ladder safety training modules are viewed on laddersafetytraining.org
- Increase the number of ladder safety training certificates issued by ALI
- Increase the number of in-person ladder trainings (In a 2019 survey of US organizations, over 50% felt that ladder-related incidents that occurred in their workplace could have been avoided with ladder safety training!)
- Lower the rankings of ladder-related safety citations on OSHA’s yearly “Top 10 Citations List”
ALI has asked for everyone’s help in bringing awareness to the importance of the safe use of ladders through resources, training, and a national dialogue. For additional information on Ladder Safety Month or for assistance with improving ladder safety compliance in your workplace, please email [email protected].
This blog was written by Beth Graham, our Associate Director of Quality, Research, and Training who has been with Safety Partners Inc. for the last 11 years.