Canadian Occupational Safety

30 Canadian Occupational Safety | www.cos-mag.com s president of a safety management consult- ing company, Alan Quilley has advised many employers about head protection. It helps that he can speak from experience — he often had to wear hard hats when he was a mechanic working on rail- way cars. "As soon as we were underneath the railway car, there was a danger of a head injury, so we had to wear a hard hat," says Quilley of Sherwood Park, Alta.-based Safety Results. "But if I had my choice, if I was working under a vehicle now, I would wear one of these baseball-style bump caps. They look good and they feel good. They're much different from a hard hat." When workers suffer a blow to the head or the head comes in contact with a harmful material, the resulting injury can be traumatic and life- threatening. No wonder, then, protective headwear is primarily designed to prevent such injuries. But workers are often exposed to the risk of less seri- ous injuries — bruises, lacerations and small cuts — caused by hitting the head. Bump caps help pro- tect workers against these injuries that, although regarded as minor, may reduce ability to work and are often painful. They are used when workers are working around a fixed object, like equipment or machinery, as well as near hanging obstructions and sharp corners. The rigid shell, due to its hardness, reduces the risk of puncture and helps distribute the impact when a worker strikes a solid object. "The idea of a bump cap is to protect people who are, through their own bodily action, going to bump into things. It's not something falling on you or being thrown at you. The cap is not very good for impact because there's no cushioning between the hard plastic and the head," Quilley says. "Work- ing under vehicles is the classic case, where a mechanic has a raised vehicle and is work- ing under it. As the person turns and moves under the vehicle, they could bump into things that are hanging down. The cap is meant to just soften that bodily reaction of bump- ing into something." There are two levels of bump caps, says Tim Wolski, product marketing manager for head and face at Franklin, Pa.-based Honeywell Safety Prod- ucts. One type, a "hard hat light," is a plastic shell and looks like a hard hat, but it is smaller and does not have the engineering that goes into a regular hard hat. These caps come with internal suspension designed simply to hold the plastic shell away from a person's head. This type of bump cap is not very comfortable, sits high on the head, is fairly bulky and is not very attractive, he adds. "But it is inexpensive and it does the job." The other type of bump cap, baseball-style, is made of textile materials and is equipped with an internal hard plastic shell and pad- ding that is often made of foam. In some cases, the bump cap shell is available sepa- rately and can be inserted into the lining of a standard baseball cap. These caps generally have no suspension built in. They are particu- larly useful where working space is limited because they fit closely to the worker's head and don't require much overhead clearance. "This one is a lot more comfortable and more attractive. It also tends to get less in the way — the first type can sit 2 inches above a person's head. Depending on how tight of a place you're working in, that can make it diffi- cult for you. You have a lot more bumps with that high bump cap on top of your head," Wolski says. The material used to make the shell of a bump cap can vary but is most commonly high-density polyethylene (HDPE). Caps come with different brim lengths, from a standard baseball-cap brim length to a very short brim length for tight spaces. The caps are very lightweight and have optional features, such as customized logos (on the baseball-style caps), adjustable chin straps, removable brow pads (to absorb moisture) and perforated sides for venti- lation to keep the worker's head cooler and reduce sweating. The baseball-style cap generally comes in fewer colours and is more expensive than the plastic shell type. For example, Honeywell's baseball cap sells for US$27, while its basic plastic shell type sells for US$8. In addition to auto repair, bump caps are designed for use in manufacturing and in jobs where overhead structures cause workers to bump their heads. They are used in industries such as automotive, meat pack- ing, food and beverage processing, pest control and home inspection, as well as in assembly facilities and warehousing. While bump caps are helpful in some situations, they are often not the head protection of choice, For workers who risk hitting their heads against fixed objects, bump caps help soften the blow By Linda Johnson I saw the mechanics wearing baseball- style bump caps and I asked them how they liked them. They loved them. They got to pick them •

• Cover