The Importance of Night Safety on Your Work Site

The Importance of Night Safety on Your Work Site

Working at night can have a lot of benefits – there’s less traffic at night, keeping workers safer and drivers happier. It’s cooler. Especially in the summertime or in a hot climate, working at night can reduce risks of heat stroke and sunburn. Also, working at night can mean more work gets done with rotating tasks or crews.

However, a work site at any time of day has its hazards, and nighttime yields its own particular risks you will want to make sure you’re ready for. Fortunately, there are several measures you can take to increase your own personal safety and reduce the risk of injury or death at your work site. This blog post will cover some helpful tips for staying safe at night while also offering a few ideas for how you can stay safer throughout the day. If you operate in a dangerous environment, read on to learn more about night safety at your work site.

Assess the Risks Ahead of Time

Set yourself up for success, and use daylight to prep for nighttime work. Flag potential hazards ahead of time and have a plan in place for them, even if it means planning some tasks to happen during other hours. For example, tasks like setting up scaffolding and operating heavy machinery are generally less safe during the night, when visibility is lower and construction workers have little to no experience working in the dark. Make sure to flag what will need to be lit up more or marked to be seen in the dark. Talk with your team about what to look out for. Working at night means everyone’s rhythms and reflexes are off, so knowing what risks are there ahead of time is your most effective safety tool.

Visibility, Visibility, Visibility

One of the most obvious—but still very important—risk factors of working at night is that, well, it’s nighttime. It will be dark. Visibility comes into play in almost every aspect of your site. The three major things you want to make sure everyone can see, both employees and civilians alike are:

• Workers (make sure they’re seen!) Your workers are your biggest asset. Ensure everyone is wearing proper safety gear, including hi-vis reflective vests and have extra lights where needed. Beyond this, keep in mind that when we work at night, our body and mental cycles are off. One of the best ways to keep your workers safe is to ensure they are well rested and healthy. Consider break rotations for when they get tired or feel a bit fuzzy. Make sure they know how to recognize when they need to stop for a moment, and how to properly prep for the work shift.
• Worksite (make sure the worksite can be seen) Using proper lighting is very important. This is a case where more isn’t always the best way. Glare from too much lighting can actually hinder visibility on a worksite. Make sure to take a look before everyone starts work to make sure everything can be seen properly.

• Equipment (make sure your stuff can be seen) There are a lot of moving parts on a worksite. Make sure all machinery is properly lit, and consider adding reflective tape, flags, or even lights to anything potentially hazardous that might be missed in the dark. Ensure that your barricades, barrels and cones are bright, visible colors, as well as geared up with reflective sheeting and tape so that workers and civilians alike don’t miss them. Consider adding extra hazard lights where needed. OTW safety has several options with flashing/steady options, and even solar lights that can charge during the day and have a battery for those hours without the sun.

Use the Proper Traffic Safety Equipment

You should be extra vigilant when it comes to your traffic safety equipment. This keeps your workers, site, and civilians all safe when construction is going on. Consider using plastic barricades to block off your site and redirect traffic. Cones and barrels have breaks along a line, and especially at night, drivers can often get confused about where a line ends or where they can turn or change lanes. Using LCD barricades like the ones we have at OTW Safety means you can link them together to form a continuous wall that is very clear, making it safer for anyone traveling during darker hours. If you are concerned about worksite access, you can easily add a gate with a gate adapter kit, so you can easily let workers in and keep civilians out.

Proper equipment means you want it to last. OTW’s plastic barricades, though very easily maneuvered while empty, are extremely sturdy when ballasted with water. They come in bright, visible colors (like the stylish safety orange we all know and love), and are UV resistant, so they won’t fade in daylight. With the ability to add lights and flags and with reflective sheeting, you basically can’t go wrong with these bad boys.

Construction work is a dangerous job, and it’s even more dangerous at night.

That’s why it’s so important to keep safety in mind while working at any time of day. Safety is our passion here at OTW. We take pride in being our own manufacturers, so we know we can provide equipment at the highest standards. We love coming up with custom solutions for our customers, so contact us anytime and see what we can do for you!