According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), an estimated 32,310 motor vehicle traffic fatalities occurred in 2011.  With snowfall and the potential for icy roads now part of many forecasts, it’s even more important for drivers to be cautious and follow the rules of the road. To remind commuters to avoid hazardous driving behaviors, Cintas Corporation (NASDAQ: CTAS), a leader in first-aid and safety products, has identified the seven worst driving offenders.

Unhappy with what they call a “piecemeal approach” to safety problems at an Illinois auto parts maker, labor officials are calling for a “wall-to-wall” inspection of the plant.

A “safety stand down” to promote safety and health practices at oil and gas exploration and production sites in Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas continues through Feb. 28. The program is an initiative by OSHA and the National Service, Transmission, Exploration & Production Safety Network, more commonly known as STEPS.

From occupational links to adult asthma to SDS template for retailers to cutbacks at OSHA, here are the week’s top EHS-related stories from ISHN.com:

National Transportation Safety Board Chairman Deborah A. P. Hersman is testifying about pipeline safety today before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. Hersman will provide an overview of the NTSB’s ongoing investigation into the cause of a natural gas transmission pipeline rupture that occurred in Sissonville, West Virginia on Dec.11, 2012.

The American Society of Safety Engineers (ASSE) announces the publication of eight new textbooks edited by Joel M. Haight, PhD., PE for college and university students. Developed from one of ASSE’s most popular technical publications, The Safety Professional’s Handbook, Second Edition these peer-reviewed texts, written by safety, health and environmental professionals, are intended as primary texts for core safety, health and environmental undergraduate courses.

Unlike most other business measures—think earnings growth or debt load—the traditional measures of safety performance tell us little about where existing functioning actually is, and where it is headed. The deficiency of safety measurement in describing actual performance is so common as to be a cliché. The reality is that there are many variables that determine the quality of safety functioning, variables that could be detected with the right set of metrics, processes, and analysis.

Virtually all catastrophic events in man-made systems are related to technical failures made possible by organizational failures. This explains why catastrophic events continue to occur despite widespread implementation of sophisticated technical and management systems. Deepwater Horizon and Texas City disasters are examples of events caused by weak organizational safety—the context within which technical and management systems function. 

Let’s be clear, there is no such thing as a safe workplace. Sure we can slap each other on the back and brag to one another about the four years without a recordable injury and we can tell ourselves that we have achieved a Utopian risk-free workplace but the reality is, there is always some probability that a worker will be harmed in the course of doing his or her job.

A recent incident at a rural oil and gas production site in Texas that critically injured two people has the U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) renewing its call for more precautions – despite the fact that the Railroad Commission of Texas (RRC-TX) has declined to increase security at such sites, arguing that the number of incidents doesn’t justify it.