The answer is, “Yes.” It’s all about proper ergonomics.

The sitting position flattens the small of the back, increasing the pressure on the discs in the spine. When a person sits, the discs may not be able to handle the vibrations coming from a moving vehicle.

Also, the ligaments in the back that help hold the spine together can stretch and slacken when the body is in a sitting position for a long time. And the ligaments can stay that way for a while, even after the driver stands.

The stresses on employees’ discs and ligaments can increase their risk for back injury.

Who’s at risk? Truck drivers, emergency medical technicians, mass transit drivers, delivery people, heavy equipment operators, farmers and forklift operators.

Here are some reminders you can give these workers to avoid injury from driving:

• Make sure you can reach the steering wheel without stretching your arms
• Adjust the seat so you can press the foot pedals without moving your lower back forward off the seat back
• Tilt the seat cushion until your thighs are supported along the full length of the cushion without pressure at the back of your knees
• Tilt your seat a notch or two back and forth every half hour to change the direction of vibration on your body
• Keep the vehicle’s suspension in good working order
• Use a lumbar support (or a rolled up towel) to help you fit the back rest to your back
• Use good posture, and
• Take regular stretch breaks for several minutes every hour or two.

Click here for more information.

The group calculates a Pedestrian Danger Index (PDI) for each area based on number of deaths per 100,000 residents and the percent of employees walking to work.

Here are the top 10 most dangerous areas along with their corresponding PDIs:

1. Orlando-Kissimmee, FL: 221.5
2. Tampa, St. Petersburg-Clearwater, FL: 205.5
3. Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach, FL: 181.2
4. Jacksonville, FL: 157.4
5. Memphis, TN: 137.7
6. Raleigh-Cary, NC: 128.6
7. Louisville/Jefferson County, KY-IN: 114.8
8. Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown, TX: 112.4
9. Birmingham-Hoover, AL: 110.0, and
10. Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Marietta, GA: 108.3.

The three safest areas are the New York City metropolitan area, Boston and Minneapolis.

Overall, nine of the ten most dangerous metros are in the South, including the top four in Florida. Transportation for America says these areas are dominated by lower population density and vehicle-oriented development patterns.

On the other hand, metros in older northeastern and northern states did much better because they have compact development patterns.

Transportation for America is calling for more spending to cut down on pedestrian deaths, noting that walking and bicycling is becoming more popular as gas prices go up and workers turn to alternative forms of transportation.

In a court settlement with Public Citizen, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has agreed to reissue the rules. Public Citizen and other groups had filed a lawsuit contesting the regulations.

Under FMCSA’s Nov. 19, 2008 Final Rule on Hours of Service for Drivers, driving hours expanded from 10 to 11  hours within a 14-hour window. Drivers could also restart their weekly on-duty limits after having at least 34 consecutive hours off duty.

Public Citizen and other groups claimed that commercial drivers would be less safe if they were allowed to drive more hours per week.

FMCSA has agreed to propose a new rule no later than July 2010. The agency has also agreed to publish a final rule by July 2011.

The court settlement is online here (PDF).

The Pearl Room in Bay Ridge, NY, was fined by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division because the teenager was working in violation of the child labor provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).

The teen was killed when he tried to stop a rolling minivan from hitting another parked car.

Police say the teen had hopped out of the vehicle without putting it in park.

When the van started rolling backwards, he ran behind it and tried to stop it from moving. But the force of the van threw him backward, pinning him against another vehicle.

The FLSA prohibits 17-year-old workers from driving vehicles after sunset as part of their jobs.

The $50,000 penalty is the maximum allowed under a recent amendment to the FLSA. The $604 was for the employer’s failure to record the young worker’s date of birth.

OSHA had investigated this case and referred it to the Wage and Hour Division.

Celebrity Web site TMZ.com posted two photographs and a video showing Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s wife, Maria Shriver, driving a large SUV while holding a cell phone.

On his Twitter feed, Schwarzenegger wrote to TMZ, “Thanks for bringing her violations to my attention. There’s going to be swift action.”

The governor’s office clarified that “swift action” meant he’ll ask his wife not to hold the phone while driving.

Schwarzenegger signed a law that took effect in July 2008 that requires California drivers to use a hands-free device when talking on cell phones in vehicles.

Since then, the California Highway Patrol has issued more than 150,000 citations. That doesn’t include tickets from local police departments.

If she’d been caught by police, Shriver would have owed about $300 for two violations.

Schwarzenegger has praised the cell phone law, saying he warned his teenage daughter that if she ever violated it, “she’ll be taking the bus.”

Schwarzenegger’s restatement of support for the law comes within a week of President Obama’s signing of an Executive Order prohibiting federal employees from using hand-held electronic devices while driving on the job.

Let us know what you think in the Comments Box below.

President Obama has signed an Executive Order banning 4.5 million employees from texting while driving.

Whose employees? The federal government’s, including the military.

Federal workers are banned, effective immediately, from text messaging when they are behind the wheel of government vehicles and from texting in their own cars if they use government-issued phones or are on official business.

The order also encourages federal contractors and others doing business with the government to do the same.

The measure comes in the wake of a meeting in Washington of 300 federal and state officials to discuss growing safety concerns about cell phone use while driving.

Along with the federal employee ban, the Obama administration plans to ban texting by bus drivers and truckers who travel across state lines and may also make it illegal for them to use cell phones while driving, except in emergencies.

Some in the trucking industry are concerned about what effect this will have on the computers thousands of long-haul truckers use in their cabs to communicate with dispatchers and do other work.

However, both Federal Express and UPS already prohibit their drivers from using these devices or other hand-held communication devices while their vehicles are in motion.

When UPS trucks are moving, they can’t receive two-way messages, according to the company.

The District of Columbia and 18 states ban texting while driving to different degrees.

One option the federal government could use to encourage more states to enact these types of laws would be to threaten their federal highway funding. The federal government used that tactic to get states to lower the legal blood-alcohol limit while driving to .08 and to increase the drinking age to 21.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 11% of drivers on the road at any given moment are using hand-held cell phones.

The Harvard Center of Risk Analysis says cell phone use is contributing to 6% of all crashes a year, resulting in 2,600 deaths and 342,000 injuries.

The National Safety Council reports several hundred companies have banned employees from using their cell phones while driving.

What should government do – or not do – to regulate use of cell phones while driving? Let us know in the Comments Box below.

In its Position Statement on Distracted Driving in Motor Vehicles, ASSE calls on its members and other safety professionals to:

• encourage and support employer rules banning any employee use of electronic devices while driving
• support proposed public laws and regulations that effectively limit the use of electronic devices while driving, and
• back improved driver education that includes the risks of distracted driving and ways to avoid such risks.

ASSE’s views about distracted driving aren’t limited to cell phone use. It says, “The same safety risks posed by cellular phones also hold true for a vehicle operator who drives in an unsafe manner while eating, drinking, putting on makeup, reading a newspaper, operating any other electronic device, or some other type of distracting activity where the driver’s mind, eyes, and hands are engaged elsewhere than the road ahead and the steering wheel.”

ASSE cites various studies to make its point that distracted driving isn’t limited to electronic device use.

A Carnegie Mellon University study shows brain power used while driving decreases by 40% when a driver listens to conversation or music. A Nationwide Mutual Insurance study found 80% of drivers admit to blatantly hazardous behavior including changing clothes, steering with a foot, painting nails and shaving.

Does your company have a policy on employees and distracted driving? Do you think it’s a good idea to support laws banning use of cell phones while driving? Should those bans also cover other types of distracted driving? What are some examples you’ve seen of distracted driving? Let us know in the Comments Box below.

The site, DeathRiskRankings.com, was developed by researchers and students at Carnegie Mellon University.

It compares mortality risks by gender, age, cause of death and geographic region.

For example, men ages 40-49 are more likely to die from a fall than of eight types of cancer. The No. 1 cause of death among women 20-29 is transportation incidents. For 20-year-old males, 80% of their deaths are from accidents, homicides and suicides.

Workers’ comp boards and courts draw a fine line between what is and what isn’t a work-related injury that qualifies for benefits. See if you can guess how the court ruled in this case:

Michael Haley worked in a shipping yard which handled arriving and departing tractor trailers and the loading and unloading of the trucks. Part of his regular duties included climbing into and out of truck cabs.

One day at work, when he stepped into the cab of a truck, he felt a spasm in his left leg.

Haley didn’t climb the step in an unusual or awkward way, and there wasn’t anything strenuous about stepping up a total of 16 inches.

After the spasm, Haley had no strength in his leg and had trouble moving it.

Doctors diagnosed a ruptured quadriceps tendon and performed surgery quickly thereafter. Complications soon developed, causing Haley to walk with a cane for some time after the injury.

He applied for workers’ comp. The state comp commission found that he hadn’t proven his injury “arose out of” his employment and denied his claim for benefits. Haley appealed.

A state appeals court upheld the comp commission’s decision, so Haley didn’t get benefits.

Haley had argued that the 16-inch step was higher than a normal step that most people would encounter outside of work, and for that reason, he should get comp.

However, the court noted that doctors weren’t able to explain any link between Haley’s work duties and the rupture. All they were able to say is that the injury occurred at work.

“At work” isn’t necessarily good enough to qualify for workers’ comp. Case closed: The company won.

Do you think the court made the right decision? Let us know in the Comments Box below.

Cite: Haley v. Springs Global U.S., Inc. and Zurich American Insurance Co., Court of Appeals of Virginia, No. 2841-08-3, 8/18/09.

The national rate in 2008 was 3.6 fatal work injuries per 100,000 full-time equivalent workers. The rate in Wyoming was 17.1 – more than 4.5 times the national rate.

In a preliminary report this summer, the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) reported that there were 210 workplace fatalities in Wyoming from 2003 to 2007. Of those, 136 were in transportation. More than half of those victims didn’t wear seatbelts.

In other words, more than 60 lives could have been saved if workers buckled up before getting behind the wheel.

Some companies we know perform spot checks of their employees who drive as part of their jobs to see if they’re wearing their seatbelts. If they’re not, the employees face discipline, up to firing after multiple infractions.

How does your company enforce safety rules for employees who are away from direct supervision because they’re driving? Let us know in the Comments section below.

The video, made by the police department of Gwent, Wales, is 30 minutes and shows the crash in graphic detail. Two passengers in the car of a young woman who is texting-while-driving are killed. The video also shows the aftermath for the surviving young woman and her family. (See our previous story.)

The film’s director, Peter Watkins-Hughes, told The New York Times, “Young people were telling us, ‘It needs to be more shocking, it needs to be more violent, it needs to be more truthful.’”

But some experts on safety and risk disagree. Kip Viscusi, who has studied risk for decades says one reason violent videos may not work is that people are already well aware that some activities are dangerous.

Ann McCartt, senior VP for research at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety said, “Over time, people go back to their everyday behaviors.”

McCartt’s alternative? Strong laws. “What really gets people to change their behaviors is strong laws, strongly enforced,” she said.

Richard Tay, a road safety researcher at the University of Calgary said a violent video must also instruct people on how to change their behavior.

Others are calling for the cell phone industry to handle the problem through technology, such as prompts on phones reminding people not to text and drive, or a feature that allows automatic, “I’m driving now” responses in incoming calls.

This issue mirrors a question often asked by safety pros: Do bloody, graphic videos showing workplace injuries really encourage workers to follow safety rules?

What do you think? Do gory safety videos work? Will this video on texting have a positive effect? Let us know in the Comments Box below, and take our poll on Safety News Alert’s home page.

A 30-minute video, made in a small town in Wales, was intended for local high school students to show them the dangers of texting and driving. But now, more than 1.5 million people have watched it on YouTube — and the general reaction by viewers is that they’ll never text and drive again.

The town of Gwent police department made the video last summer. It starts with a multi-vehicle crash caused by a young woman who was texting while driving. The first four minutes have turned up on YouTube. (Warning: The video is very violent.)

The driver is the only survivor in her car. Two of her friends die in the crash.

The video shows much more than the crash and its immediate aftermath. It also shows the future: the aftershocks that change the lives of the young survivor and her family.

In an interview with CBS News, the video’s writer and director, Peter Watkins, said, “Yes it is violent, but the reality of a fatal road accident is much more gruesome, is much more violent. My position is that if you are old enough to drive, you are old enough to want to drive, you are old enough to be aware of the real and serious risks one places yourself in every time you get behind the wheel.”

Gwent police chief constable Mick Giannasi said, “We have had e-mail after e-mail from people saying, ‘I will never ever text and drive again’ — from young people.”

Watch the video via the link above. Let us know what you think in the Comments Box below. Or, take our poll about this subject on the SafetyNewsAlert.com home page.

If you’d like more information about this video, send an e-mail to: corporate.communications@gwent.pnn.police.uk

A tow truck driver ran his vehicle into a swimming pool after texting on one cell phone while talking on another. You can see the result here (and then share the photo with workers at your next safety meeting).

Police in Lockport, NY, say 25-year-old Nicholas Sparks admitted he was texting and talking while his flatbed truck hit a car, crashed through a fence, sideswiped a house and then rolled into an in-ground pool.

The driver of the struck car suffered head injuries but is in good condition. A child passenger suffered minor injuries.

Sparks is charged with reckless driving, talking on a cell phone while driving and following too closely.

Anything that takes drivers’ minds off the road or hands off the wheel increases the chances of a crash.

Insurance.com recently posted a list of dangerous foods while driving:

• Hot liquids: Coffee, tea, hot chocolate or even soup can spill or burn a driver’s mouth in an instant.
• Greasy food: Tacos, chili dogs and hamburgers may seem ready-made to eat while driving. But grease on a steering wheel spells danger.
• Gooey food: Once again, it may seem easy to hold that jelly donut or breakfast burrito while driving to work. But once the contents start to drip onto the driver’s shirt, that’s a huge distraction.

If states pass laws against using cell phones while driving, should they also outlaw eating while behind the wheel? Let us know in the Comments Box below.

The provision has been on-again, off-again since 2008.

Recently, a federal court ruled that transportation safety was a compelling reason to mandate observation when employees who previously failed or refused to take a drug test are retested.

The rule requires observers to check people producing urine samples for prosthetic or other cheating devices. This provision takes effect Aug. 31, 2009.

The court took into account the recent development of a wide array of available cheating devices (see our previous article here). It also said the rule didn’t violate the Fourth Amendment prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures. The judges on the court stated unanimously that employees who had failed or refused a previous drug test had diminished expectation of privacy.

Transportation Department (DOT) data show that the violation rate for return-to-duty and follow-up testing is two to four times higher than that of random testing.

DOT’s rule negates any collective bargaining agreements that prohibit or limit the use of direct observation collections for return-to-work and follow-up testing.

(Click here for the Federal Register notice on the new regulation.)

Do you support DOT’s decision to require observed collections in these circumstances? Let us know in the Comments Box below.

A North Carolina man died after being run over by both his pickup and a large dump truck at a landfill.

James Huskey of Waynesville went to the county landfill to dump some trash, according to the Citizen Times.

As he was leaving, a dump truck struck the passenger side of his pickup and pushed it about 90 feet.

Huskey opened his door and stood up in an attempt to alert the dump truck driver. He lost his balance, fell and was run over by his pickup and the dump truck.

The dump truck traveled another 120 feet before a supervisor at the landfill alerted the driver.

Huskey was declared dead at the scene.

An officer with the county sheriff’s department called it “a very freak accident.”

The driver doesn’t face charges because traffic laws don’t apply on private property.

North Carolina OSHA is investigating.

The New York Times recently posted a game to show what happens when typical driving distractions are combined with trying to send text messages.

Click here to try it out.

When you’re done, you’ll see how much slower your reaction time was while texting compared to the average driver.

Note: Regardless of your results, experts say, don’t attempt to text while driving.

Do you have employees who think they can talk or text on a cell phone while driving? Show them this test.

Between 1994 and 2007, between 1,343 and 1,442 American workers died in highway-related incidents in each and every year. That’s according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

And 2007, which provides the most recent data, was right in line. The final tally: 1,414.

Why aren’t the numbers improving? One reason may be that business drivers are at best, apathetic about safety, and at worst, downright resistant.

A recent study suggests that more than 40% of those drivers would not be open to road safety training — or at least that their managers think they wouldn’t be. And less than a quarter of managers thought their drivers would “definitely be willing to take part in road safety training.”

The study was done in England, but based on the discouraging yearly numbers here, it’s reasonable to wonder whether we have the same problem.

What do you think? In your experience, how do business drivers respond to safety training? Is there a way to improve the numbers? Share your thoughts in the Comment Box below.

The National Safety Council (NSC) is advocating legislation to ban all types of cell phone use on the road, including hands-free usage.

Now, six states have bans on driving while talking on a hand-held cell phone: California, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, Utah and Washington. It’s also banned in the District of Columbia, and at least five other states have cities and towns with bans.

The organization acknowledges that it’ll take a long time to get all states to pass such legislation, so it’s also urging businesses to enact policies prohibiting the practice.

The NSC notes results of several studies to back up its call, including:

• Drivers are at a four times greater risk of a crash
• Cell phone use contributes to 6% of crashes, and
• The annual financial toll of cell phone-related crashes is $43 billion.

Anticipating some of the arguments against cell phone bans, the NSC admits other in-car activities are more dangerous than using cell phones. However, the group says as cell phone use has become so prevalent, it has become more dangerous overall.

Also, studies show that hands-free devices don’t make cell phone calls while driving safe.

What’s the difference between talking on a hands-free phone and speaking with someone else in a car? Unlike the passenger sitting next to you, the person on the other end of the call is oblivious to what’s happening around the driver on the road. The passenger provides another pair of eyes and can help keep the driver alert.

Do you think a total ban on cell phone use while driving is necessary? Does your company have a policy banning your employees from using cell phones while driving for business? Does that ban include hands-free usage? Let us know in the Comments Box below.

The NSC has set up a Web page with resources and data at http://distracteddriving.nsc.org.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) had sued J.B. Hunt Transport, Inc., claiming that the rights of applicants for over-the-road (OTR) truck driving jobs had been violated.

Hunt chose not to hire OTR applicants taking certain prescription medications with side effects that could impair driving.

The trucking company argued that the large vehicle size and the extreme driving conditions faced by its OTR drivers warranted extra safety precautions.

Hunt cited Department of Transportation (DOT) regulations that allow an operator to require and enforce “more stringent requirements relating to safety of operation and employee safety and health.”

The two-judge majority on the 2nd Circuit disagreed with the EEOC, saying the applicants lost their jobs because of the medications they took, not because of any real or perceived disability under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

To find that the applicants were regarded as disabled, the EEOC had to show that Hunt perceived the rejected applicants as limited from a class or a broad range of jobs.

The two-judge majority found that OTR driving didn’t qualify as a class or broad range of jobs.

But Judge Sotomayor found that the EEOC has shown Hunt believed the rejected applicants were unfit to drive any truck — which qualified as a broad range of jobs.

Had one of the other two judges agreed with her position, Hunt would have been found in violation of the ADA.

If that were the case, Hunt would not have been allowed to set higher safety standards for its OTR drivers than required by the DOT.

The majority ruling in the Hunt case and Sotomayor’s dissent are online here.

What do you think about this case and Sotomayor’s dissenting opinion? Let us know in the Comments Box below.

A Texas drilling company will pay $16 million to the family of a woman who was killed when equipment fell off its tractor trailer and onto the victim’s SUV.

Pioneer Drilling Co. of San Antonio, TX, agreed to the settlement after three days of trial in a Texas court.

On Sept. 11, 2008, Rhonda Henson was driving her Ford Explorer with her husband in the passenger seat. A large piece of oil field equipment fell off a passing tractor trailer, crushing the driver’s side of the SUV.

According to the Times-Review, jurors heard a 911 call in which an eyewitness tells an emergency center operator that she yelled to see if anyone was in the SUV. Thomas Henson, who was out of the truck, told the eyewitness his wife was dead in the vehicle.

The equipment, weighing more than 15 tons, was secured with two chains, not four as required by law.

A local police department report also said the driver, 21-year-old Daniel Armstrong, failed to control his speed.

The attorney for Henson’s family said sworn testimony showed at least one Pioneer employee was aware that Armstrong had several traffic tickets, a suspended license and wasn’t qualified to drive the tractor trailer.

The attorney said other company employees forged, backdated and fabricated Armstrong’s records after the accident. A company employee eventually came forward with that claim.

A statement from Pioneer said all but $1 million of the $16 million settlement will be covered by insurance.

“Death by Cell Phone” is the title of a new billboard campaign launched by the NSC.

The billboards feature Linda, a 61-year-old wife, mother and grandmother from Oklahoma, and Joe, a 12-year-old boy from Michigan, both killed in car crashes caused by drivers using cell phones.

The phrase comes from what Linda’s daughter said about her mother’s crash: “My mother died within a couple of hours from blunt force trauma to the head, neck and chest. I just call it death by cell phone.”

A companion video is also available at DeathByCellPhone.org. The video tells Linda’s and Joe’s stories.

According to a 2008 poll by Nationwide Insurance, 81% of cell phone owners report talking on their phones while driving and 18% admit texting while driving.

In January, the NSC called for a nationwide ban on all forms of cell phone use while driving.

The following state bans are in effect, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety:

• 6 states (California, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, Utah and Washington) and Washington, DC, ban talking on a hand-held cell phone while driving.
• Use of all cell phones by novice drivers is restricted in 21 states and DC, and
• Text messaging is banned for all drivers in 14 states and DC.

Would you support a nationwide ban on all use of cell phones while driving? Let us know in the Comments Box below.

The accident happened Sunday at about 2 a.m.

The crash claimed the life of 21-year-old employee Austin Wuennenberg. Six guests were treated on the scene for minor injuries. The driver of the other monorail was also taken to the hospital with minor injuries.

One early theory among people involved with Disney’s monorail system is that one of the trains was switching tracks, which requires the monorail pilot to override the anti-crash system, according to the Orlando Sentinel.

The monorails have data recorders which may provide more information on the cause of the crash.

Wuennenberg was a student at nearby Stetson University. One of his former classmates is quoted as saying the young man scheduled his classes around his Disney job and took precautions if he was working a night shift.

Brandon Ross says his friend would make the hour-long drive to the Orlando area the day before his shift so he wouldn’t be tired when he operated the train.

In an online profile, Wuennenberg referred to working 12- and 14-hour shifts recently.

That’s the possibility raised in a report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) about a voluntary program administered by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA).

The report says it appears the Performance and Registration Information Systems Management (PRISM) program is keeping carriers that FMCSA has ordered out of service from obtaining vehicle registrations in the 25 states in which it operates.

An additional 6 states have started collecting identification numbers and may be checking the safety status of the carrier at the time of registration.

But 3 states are not participating in PRISM, and another 15 states and the District of Columbia haven’t started to implement the program despite commitments to FMCSA that they will do so. This includes states with the greatest number of registered commercial motor vehicles.

The 18 states without active programs are: California, Colorado, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Dakota, Rhode Island, Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming.

The GAO report is available online here (free Adobe Acrobat Reader required).

The crash sent two police officers to the hospital with minor injuries.

The fact that the officers only received minor injuries doesn’t do justice to this story. Both police cars are total losses, as you can see from video taken by WDAF-TV.

Police were stopped on Interstate 29 because of a one-car accident.

The texting driver ran into the back of one stopped police car, knocking it into another one. Police say there’s no evidence that brakes were applied before the crash.

Police charged the texting driver with DWI, careless driving and failure to yield. Missouri just passed a ban on texting, but it only applies to drivers under 21. This driver was 25.

Imagine this: Two of your employees who work together both get little sleep before performing a safety-sensitive task. Then, the two are involved in an incident that kills 50 people.

A major focus of the National Transportation Safety Board’s (NTSB) investigation into the crash of Continental Connection Flight 3407 on Feb. 12 has been on whether the captain and co-pilot were fatigued.

Co-pilot Rebecca Shaw lived with her parents near Seattle and commuted across the country to her job. The night before the accident, Shaw flew overnight from Seattle and changed planes in Memphis before reporting for the early morning flight out of Newark, NJ.

It’s unclear whether Captain Marvin Renslow slept the night before the trip. He was in the middle of a two-day assignment. The night before, he logged into a computer in a crew room, according to NTSB documents.

The crash killed all 49 people on the plane and one person on the ground.

The problem of fatigued employees isn’t limited to pilots. Fatigue costs U.S. employers $136 billion annually in health-related costs and lost worker productivity — not to mention potential lawsuits in cases involving serious injury or death.

What can be done?

You can’t follow your employees home to tuck them into bed at night. Most of the responsibility for being alert at work falls on employees themselves.

However, there are some tips you can give workers and some things you can do to improve alertness. Among the things workers can do:

• Set regular hours for sleeping. The average adult needs eight hours a night, but some require up to 10.
• Avoid caffeine three to five hours before going to bed.
• Naps can help if they’re less than an hour or longer than 90 minutes. That way, workers are less likely to wake up during deep sleep.
• Develop overall good health habits such as daily physical activity and a balanced diet.

For companies with night or long shifts, bright light and cooler temperatures enhance alertness. If possible, schedule the most tedious tasks early in a shift. Moderate physical activity during breaks, such as taking a walk, helps, too.

Employees should have at least ten hours between work shifts.

Have you taken steps to encourage workers in safety-sensitive positions to get proper rest? Let us know about what you’ve done, or leave us a comment on this story, in the box below.

A recent survey by a British insurance company seems to suggest that.

RSA surveyed over 2,000 UK employees, and 71% report an increase in their stress levels because of the recession.

On top of that, 20% of workers surveyed believe they are more likely to face a workplace accident due to recession stress. The percent of workers who fear they’re more likely to have an accident, broken out by industry:

• manufacturing: 35%
• transportation: 28%, and
• leisure sector: 21%.

RSA estimates 13.5 million work days will be lost this year in Great Britain due to workplace stress.

Is there something to this? Let us know what you think in the Comments Box below.

A company had banned its employees from talking or texting on cell phones while working for safety reasons. Now it’s taking the cell phone ban one step further.

The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) is banning employees from carrying their cell phones on the job. The penalty if they do: termination.

The new rule came after a trolley rammed into another one, injuring the operator and nearly 50 passengers, derailing both trains, and causing MBTA service to be suspended at the Government Center in Boston for several hours. The crash totaled three trolley cars and caused $9.6 million in damage.

The operator of the trolley told investigators from his hospital bed that he was sending a text message to his girlfriend just before the crash. Preliminary information from an investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board also shows the driver, Aiden Quinn, ran a red light just before the crash.

Before this incident, MBTA employees were allowed to carry cell phones but were banned from talking or texting while on the road or tracks. A first offense carried a three-day suspension, although the agency had the right to fire violators. MBTA’s General Manager Daniel Grabauskas said the trolley driver in this crash would be fired.

“You are not to get on board that bus or [train or trolley] and have a cell phone on your person or in the cab. Period,” Grabauskas told The Boston Globe. “This is going to be a zero-tolerance policy.”

Officials said the new policy wouldn’t compromise communications in an emergency because cabs are equipped with radios and emergency call buttons.

Transit officials say in the last 12 months, five train and trolley drivers and 13 bus drivers had been cited under the old policy. One bus driver was fired.

State Transportation Secretary James Aloisi Jr. predicts other states and transit agencies would follow MBTA’s lead and ban employees from having cell phones on the job.

Did MBTA make the right decision, or is this overkill? Does your company ban employees from using cell phones while driving for business purposes? Let us know what you think in the Comments Box below.

Police in Surrey, British Columbia, say a 25-year-old woman was killed when she was struck in the back of the head and neck with her laptop computer.

Heather Storey was on a business trip with her luggage in the back seat of her car when a tow truck collided with her, according to the CBC.

Investigators say Storey would have survived the accident had it not been for her laptop.

Her laptop was unsecured in the back seat at the time of the accident. Police believe the crash impact threw the laptop out of the back seat, striking Storey. She died of blunt force trauma to the back of her head.

Storey’s brother, Michael Pratt, is warning others to take steps to avoid similar incidents.

“Try not to keep stuff [in your car's back seat] that can get airborne or hit you, just because your family, and people that care about you, really will miss you when you’re gone,” Pratt said.

In the first case, OSHA has ordered Southern Air, Inc., of Norwalk, CT, to pay nine former employees more than $7.9 million in wages, damages and legal fees. The air cargo carrier must also withdraw a lawsuit against the former workers.

After some of the workers raised safety concerns about the company, Southern Air filed a defamation lawsuit against them.

An OSHA investigation found the company’s lawsuit was filed in retaliation against the workers.

Southern must pay the employees $6.0 million in lost future earnings, $1.8 million in compensatory damages and $129,000 in legal fees.

In the second case, announced just three days later, OSHA ordered United Parcel Service (UPS) to immediately rehire, pay back wages, benefits, compensatory damages and $50,000 in punitive damages to a former San Francisco-area driver.

OSHA says the driver was wrongfully terminated after he refused to drive after raising safety concerns because of bad weather and visibility issues.

Which types of on-the-job injuries cause employees to miss the most time from work?

Liberty Mutual Insurance has released its annual Workplace Safety Index that identifies the leading causes of the most disabling workplace injuries.

Overall, the estimated direct U.S. workers’ compensation costs for these top ten injuries totaled $48.6 billion in 2006.

These 10 categories account for 87.9% of the cost burden of disabling workplace injuries.

Here’s the breakdown on the top 10:

1. Overexertion (injuries caused by excessive lifting, pushing, pulling, holding or throwing): $12.4B, 25.7%
2. Fall on the same level (such as slips and trips): $6.4B, 13.3%
3. Fall to lower level: $5.3B, 10.8%
4. Bodily reaction (injuries caused from slipping or tripping without falling): $4.8B, 10.0%
5. Struck by object (such as a tool falling on a worker from above): $4.3B, 8.9%
6. Struck against object (such as a worker walking into a door): $2.5B, 5.1%
7. Highway incident: $2.4B, 4.9%
8. Caught in/compressed by: $2.1B, 4.4%
9. Repetitive motion (injuries due to repeated stress or strain): $2.0B, 4.0%, and
10. Assaults/violent acts: $0.4B, 0.9%.

Between 1998 and 2006, the costs of repetitive motion injuries declined the most: 35.3%. The costs of fall on the same level and fall to lower level each showed the largest increase: 17.9%.

Have you had success recently in reducing any of these types of injuries? If so, let us know about it in the Comments Box below.

All three men were hospitalized, with one in critical and two in serious condition.

The incident occurred while employees of California Linen Services, dba Dy-Dee Diaper Service, were refueling a delivery truck that operates on compressed natural gas (CNG), according to the Pasadena Star-News.

Investigators believe the vehicle’s fuel tank exploded, destroying the truck. The tank shot about 1,000 feet into the air and landed about 200 feet away. No one was injured by the falling tank.

The explosion caused an estimated $112,000 in damage to vehicles and the linen company building’s contents.

Witnesses said the explosion felt like an earthquake.

Cal-OSHA is investigating and won’t release any information about possible causes until its investigation is complete.

Federal OSHA has regulations for the regular inspection and maintenance of CNG storage cylinders.

OSHA 1910.101 requires fueling station operators to conduct regular visual inspections to determine that compressed gas cylinders are in a safe condition.

Cylinders must be retested every five years, including a visual internal and external examination together with a test by interior hydrostatic pressure in a water jacket or other suitable apparatus.

State OSHA rules must be as strict, but can be more stringent, than the federal regulations.

The same four groups successfully filed court challenges against the rules in 2003 and 2005.

In each case, the D.C. Circuit Court told the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration to justify the reasoning behind its rules. Each time, FMCSA re-issued the same rules.

The groups — Public Citizen, Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, Truck Safety Coalition, and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters — oppose two aspects of the HOS rules:

• the increase from 10 to 11 hours of permissible consecutive driving, and
• the provision that enables commercial drivers to restart their weekly on-duty limits after taking 34 consecutive hours off.

In a letter to Secretary of Transportation Raymond LaHood, the groups say they filed the lawsuit because “longer driving and working hours are unsafe and promote driver fatigue.”

They cite a 2008 survey by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety that more commercial drivers operate their vehicles when sleepy and report higher incidents of falling asleep at the wheel now than under the previous HOS rule.

What if the court throws out the HOS rules again? The old rules (10 hours of consecutive driving, no 34-hour restart) would go into effect until FMCSA takes action.

And what FMCSA does could be different this time because of the change from the Bush to the Obama administration.