Irtiza Zaidi is the Product Marketing Manager at Webtech Wireless. He works closely with the safety professionals in many companies in the oil patch.
Recently, he attended the Petroleum Safety Conference—billed as “Canada’s premiere oil and gas safety conference and tradeshow”—in Banff, Alberta, for a few days to learn more about safety concerns in the oil and gas industry.
Below are his latest discoveries about the Conference and safety professionals.
Irtiza Zaidi: “Before I dive into the meat and potatoes, I wanted to share some insight into the safety profession and the folks I interacted with. I went to one breakout session led by Imperial Oil, which was quite an eye opener. The purpose was to describe the risks that safety professionals take every day on the job and how they deal with them. The idea is that, before we can start preaching to others, let’s evaluate ourselves first.
Now the view I had of safety folks was they were risk averse by-the-book people. They worked Monday to Friday and in their off time did everything possible to avoid risk. They would never cross a yellow light while driving nor would they park without paying. Well, was I was in for a shock!
We had some safety people talking about how they chased storms in Alberta. Winter storms, rain storms, blizzards, and how they had been doing this for 15 years. Another safety person talked about how they wore helmets on their motorcycles while travelling at speeds of 120 on the Canadian highways, but once they got to the US, the helmets came off. Or the safety person who jumped between moving boats in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean while it was raining, so she could help out with a lobster catch.
The presentations I attended were delivered well and the topics of immense importance. Colonel Mark Trostel, Driving Safety Advisor with Encana, presented, Driving Safety: Enhancing Performance, Reducing Exposure, in which he described some of the challenges of using in-cab audible feedback (such as buzzers and beeps), to try to change driver behaviour. He provided helpful statistical information as well as first-hand knowledge of the affect alerts have on drivers.
Here are some statistics shared in this presentation:
40% of all fatalities in the energy industry occur in vehicles
Leading indicators of crashes
– Excessive Braking, following too closely, distracted driving
– Rapid starts and aggressive or reckless driving
– Habitual speeding dramatically increases risk and severity of accidents
– Frequent Lateral “Gs” are precursors to a rollover crash
Encana’s AVL program for its light-duty vehicles provides
– Driver scorecards that were emailed to the driver each week
– Supervisors with the ability to review their drivers’ driving habits
What worked?
– Providing drivers with feedback about their performance on a weekly basis
– Providing incentives to drivers with good behavior worked
– Having drivers compare themselves with their peers led to the drivers creating their own “Top 100 Club”
What didn’t work?
– Driver feedback by way of audible tones or flashing lights only lasted three weeks before the drivers went back to their old driving patterns.”
“Safe Driving Programs – Why Should I Care?” by Colonel Mark Trostel, EnCana in 2010
