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Distracted driving; bicycle helmets; a stiff fine for lockout/tagout hazards; injuries to nonprofit volunteers and workers’ comp; and we’ve seen NFL replacement refs, how about replacement workers’ comp magistrates? It’s all in this week’s Safety News Summary. Click “more” to read on.

A majority of states already have bans on texting while driving. Some also ban the use of phones in a hand-held mode while behind the wheel. But how far should these bans go? In Pogue’s Posts, The New York Times’ David Pogue asks whether bans should be placed on drivers using voice-recognition software, such as Siri on iPhones. Is that any less distracting than texting while driving?

Cities in the U.S. and Europe are encouraging bicycling to cut down on inner-city congestion. There’s one big difference in bicycling here and across the pond: In Europe, helmets aren’t required. Is that a bad safety practice? That’s the question in another New York Times article on transportation safety from last week.

OSHA doesn’t mess around when it comes to lockout/tagout fines. In Manufacturing Weekly, Alex Irwin outlines how one manufacturer was hit hard with an OSHA fine for exposing workers to lockout/tagout hazards.

Know someone who volunteers at a nonprofit? If they get injured during their volunteer hours, they may not be covered by the organization’s workers’ comp insurance. Read more about that at Insurance Journal.

And finally this week, the replacement refs are gone from the NFL with the full-timers back on the job. However, Workerscomplawyerhelp.com warns that replacement workers’ comp magistrates may be coming to Michigan.

Read something online about safety this week that you’d like to share with your peers? Let us know about it, and we’ll feature it in an upcoming Safety News Summary.

Tags: bicycle helmets, distracted driving, lockout/tagout, replacement refs