Scaffolding, among other violations stemming from falls from elevations, dominated OSHA's “Top 10” list of the most frequently cited OSHA standards for 2007.

The 2007 list covers the period of Oct. 1, 2006, through Sept. 30, 2007.

“There is no doubt that each one of these violations could lead to serious, if not fatal, consequences, either in a sudden event or over the long haul,” according to Gary Birchall, manager of the DuPont Safety Resources contractor safety practice. “But there is a serious underlying danger that companies miss by reviewing these compliance issues individually. From my personal experience, the cumulative interaction of safety system failures appear in virtually all catastrophic incidents I have investigated.

“For instance, in a fall related incident, you may find that a scaffold was not constructed as well as it could have been, fall prevention training had not been conducted, and the owner/contractor had not audited the worksite. All of these system failures could have contributed to this potentially fatal incident.

“In our work providing safety consulting to other companies, we find that our clients do not merely want to achieve compliance; we work with companies that want to move beyond average to achieving world class performance and true, safety excellence.  Companies that focus solely on compliance and settle for average safety performance are missing opportunities to save workers’ lives and livelihoods and worker's compensation dollars.”

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