Buildings Department Announces New Citywide Safety Campaign To Encourage Construction Workers To Use Proper Fall Protection By on May 04, 2011

Entitled Experience Is Not Enough, the new multi-lingual campaign is designed to emphasize that all workers must use proper fall protection, such as safety harnesses, guardrails and netting, regardless of how long they have worked in the construction trades and how much experience they possess. A worker falling is the most commonconstruction related accidentin New York City, representing 42% of all accidents reported to the Department in 2010. Since 2008, 16 construction workers have lost their lives due to the lack of basic fall protection. In February, two ironworkers, ages 49 and 51, were killed when they fell approximately 65 feet while installing a steel beam at a job site on West 83rd Street in Manhattan. Department investigators determined safety harnesses were on site at the time of the accident, but they were not being used. The new fall prevention campaign coincided with last weeks 7th Annual Construction Safety Week, a week-long series of events aimed at raising awareness about safe construction practices throughout the City. Throughout Construction Safety Week 2011, the Department hosted a variety of seminars to provide the latest information on safe construction operations, including discussions about new requirements in high-rise construction and the challenges of building in a dense urban environment. Construction-related accidents have declined 56% in the first quarter of 2011. In the first three months of the year, there were 18 accidents compared to 41 during the same period in 2010. In the first quarter of 2011, construction-related accidents declined 56% from 41 to 18 when compared to the same period in 2010. During that period, there have been three construction-related fatalities, two of which were cited on the previous page. In 2010, there were 157 reported construction-related accidents compared to 218 in 2009. Of the 157 accidents, 66 involved a worker falling at a job site. There were four construction-related fatalities in 2010 all of which involved workers who fell during construction operations due to a lack of proper fall protection measures, as required by law. It is also the time of year for the departments annual No-Penalty Retaining Wall Inspection Program, which allows homeowners to call, between May 2 and June 3, 2011, 311 to request a free retaining wall inspection without the threat of a penalty. Retaining walls are designed to hold back soil that would move to a more natural slope or incline if the wall was not in place. They can deteriorate as temperatures rise and the seasons change, which can put nearby buildings at risk. The personal injury lawyers at Levine & Slavit have decades of experience handling personal injury claims, including for workers injured at construction sites. For 50 years spanning 3 generations, we have obtained results for satisfied clients. Contact the personal injury lawyers at Levine & Slavit for their help. We have offices in Manhattan and Long Island, handling cases in New York City, the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens and surrounding areas. To learn more, watch our videos.

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