In recent years, portable gas detectors have shrunk in size and cost while many new features have been added: automatic time-weighted average (TWA) and short-term exposure limit (STEL) calculations, data logging, man-down alarm, and wireless capabilities to name a few. With increased usage due to reduced cost, enhanced safety awareness and tighter regulations, misconceptions regarding correct portable instrument usage have increased accordingly.
Misconceptions become problematic when those ideas are gradually accepted as truth. Those safety industry misconceptions can not only be costly, but also potentially hazardous, injurious and even deadly. Five common safety industry misconceptions will be discussed here.