Caution! Slips, Trips And Falls On The Rise

Last month at ISSA/INTERCLEAN^® USA in Chicago, I attended the seminar, “Reducing Your Slips, Trips and Falls Risk,” presented by Steve Spencer, facilities specialist for State Farm Insurance. Spencer noted that the average victims of slip-and-fall accidents are women over the age of 60. Now here’s the bad news for building service contractors: The potential for incidents will increase exponentially as Baby Boomers age.

Fortunately for BSCs and their customers, help is on the horizon. The National Floor Safety Institute (NFSI) was recently recognized as an Accredited Standards Developer by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). In response, NFSI established a new Standards Committee to oversee the development of all present and future NFSI walkway safety standards. ANSI will soon begin publishing NFSI standards to use as voluntary benchmarks for safety.

In addition to complying with these standards, BSCs should re-evaluate their safety procedures for wet floors. One tip from Spencer: Signage should be 28 inches tall, visible from 360 degrees and only used when floors are wet. Too often signs are left out on dry floors and pedestrians begin to doubt that there is a hazard.