Safe Digging in Roadbuilding
The roadbuilding industry is more committed to safe digging than it has ever been, according to Richard Broome, MD at LSBUD, the UK’s leading online safe digging resource.
Below, Richard shines a spotlight on the state of best practices within the industry.
The dangers of hitting pipes and cables
If a road construction worker hits an underground pipe or cable, it can have a significant and long-lasting effect on them and those around them. It can lead to serious injuries, and in the worst cases, fatalities.
There is also the added disruption to consider. If road construction work leads to electricity cables, water, gas or chemical pipes being struck, entire communities can be cut off from the basic utilities they need to function on a day-to-day basis.
Also, the repair costs can add up to thousands of pounds.
With this in mind, it’s essential that workers fully understand these implications and know how to prevent strikes from happening.
The good news is that evidence suggests workers are searching before they dig more often than they ever have before.
Safe digging
In fact, the number of searches by the highways industry checking for underground pipes and cables before they dug reached over 411,000 last year.
These searches precede all sorts of activity, such as installing street furniture and traffic calming measures, resurfacing roads, building new routes and dropping kerbs.
With so much activity taking place on the UK’s roads, it’s great to see that contractors are increasingly on board with the message to ‘search before you dig’.
Build on the momentum
There is still plenty more to do and the important thing is that the industry continues to build on this momentum in the months and years to come.
