Contractors Hot Line is part of the Catalyst Communications Network publication family.
Contractors Hot Line is part of the Catalyst Communications Network publication family.
In what could become an industry standard, the U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) announced it’s replacing traditional hard hats used by its employees with more modern safety helmets, which offer better protection due to their design features.
In November 2023, OSHA published a Safety and Health Information Bulletin detailing key differences between traditional hard hats and modern safety helmets. The agency detailed the advancements in design, materials and other features that help better protect workers' heads.
For example:
OSHA has also updated its recommended uses for safety helmets, which now include electrical work, high-temp environments and specialized work environments. The agency noted that it wants employers to make safety and health a core value in their workplaces and is committed to doing the same by leading by example and embracing the evolution of head protection.
Why is Safety Helmet Use Critical?
Joe Brandel, business development manager at Mips, explained that many accidents around the head do not occur linearly but at an angle. As a result, so-called rotational movements can act on the head and brain, which can lead to severe brain traumatic injuries.
Traditional hard hats may fail in common workplace accidents, Brandel also noted. For example, type 1 hard hats are designed to protect wearers from impacts to the top of the head only. The problem is that these helmets often fail to protect workers from head injuries during slips, trips and falls if they fall off the wearer’s head.
The goal is to improve head protection by reducing harmful rotational motion caused by an angled impact from a worker falling or being struck by a falling object.
In certain angled impacts, Mips safety systems can reduce harmful forces that may otherwise be transmitted to the head. A low-friction layer inside the helmet, for instance, allows multi-directional movement on certain angled impacts, intended to help reduce rotational force to the head.
Mips has teamed up with safety helmet manufacturers to include its low-friction layer systems in helmets and hard hats. The company is also focused on helmet testing with their Virtual Test Lab (VTL) to predict how new helmets will perform in real-life impacts more quickly and efficiently than physical testing.