City hall saw a nine-per-cent decrease in safety incidents during the fourth quarter of 2021 compared to 2020, although several categories did increase overall last year.
The fourth-quarter report — presented during a recent council meeting — showed that between Oct. 1 and Dec. 31 of 2021 and 2020, there were:
- Injuries: 14 / 18
- Lost time injuries: 2 / 1
- Lost days: 21 / 9
- Medical aid: 8 / 1
- Motor vehicle incidents: 11 / 12
- Property damage: 5 / 4
- Dangerous occurrences: 3 / 2
- Reversing incidents: 4 / 4
- Work refusals: 0 / 0
Total fourth-quarter incidents in 2021 in the four main categories — injuries, motor vehicle incidents, property damage and dangerous occurrences — were 33 and in 2020 were 36, a decline of nine per cent.
Meanwhile, total statistics for 2021 versus 2020 show:
- Total injuries: 56 / 74
- Lost time injuries: 2 / 9
- Lost days: 21 / 125
- Medical aid: 22 / 16
- Motor vehicle incidents: 62 / 51
- Property damage: 16 / 20
- Dangerous occurrence: 11 / 8
- Reversing incident: 10 / 9
- Work refusals: 2 / 0
Total incidents for 2021 in the four main categories — injuries, motor vehicle incidents, property damage and dangerous occurrences — were 202 and in 2020 were 316, a decline of 36 per cent.
The safety statistics appear to be trending downward, which is a good sign, said Coun. Jamey Logan. He acknowledged that he was initially against adding a second safety officer to the 2021 budget but admitted that that position appears to be paying off.
“I see the medical aids are up, but I think that’s by design, as … team members start to buy in,” he remarked, adding while it’s also discouraging to see an increase in the number of vehicle backup incidents, there is hope for improvement.
While Logan thought the second safety officer was paying off, Coun. Doug Blanc held the opposite view, pointing to increases in the fourth quarter of lost-time incidents and vehicle backup incidents. He wondered why some areas increased instead of decreased.
The reporting has been more robust with the second safety officer, which is why more incidents have been recorded, explained city manager Jim Puffalt. Furthermore, that second officer was not present for a large portion of the construction season last year.
“When you look at it overall, our stats are down. We continue to train people on proper backing techniques and we continue to discipline people when those are not followed,” he added. “So … we have drops in most of our areas that we’ll see a drop again next year as our stats come in.”
The next regular council meeting is Monday, March 28.
