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Safety and health professionals are intensely serious about protecting workers from the hazards of electrical arc flash and complying with industry safety standards. But it’s easy to make mistakes that create unnecessary costs (both time and money) or put workers at risk. As you comply with NFPA 70E and OSHA safety standards, avoid these common missteps:

According to the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), arc-flash is an electric current that passes through air when insulation or isolation between electrified conductors is no longer sufficient to withstand the applied voltage. The flash is immediate, but the result of these incidents can cause severe injury including burns. Each year more than 2,000 people are treated in burn centers with severe arc flash injuries.

Most electricians will tell you that safety is always their #1 priority. When considering electrical hazards on the job, arc flash is perhaps the most lethal threat with temperatures exceeding 35,000 degrees.

A new iniative from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is aimed at giving parents the tools they need to speak effectively to their teen about safe driving. With motor vehicle crashes the #1 killer of U.S. teens (2011 saw 2,015 teen traffic accident fatalities), the agency is urging parents to spell out some rules before they hand over the keys to a two-ton machine.

A fire in August at Rick’s Auto Body of Missoula, Montana did not, fortunately, result in any injuries or fatalities, but it did get the attention of OSHA inspectors, who found nine serious violations at the workplace.

A construction company in American Samoa that routinely neglected to ensure workers were anchored or tied off to body harnesses came in for scrutiny by OSHA after a worker suffered a fatal fall in May.

Only 112 of the tens of thousands of claims submitted to the 9/11 fund established by Congress for victims of 9/11 have been resolved, meaning determinations have been made and money awarded to the claimants. The $27 million paid out so far amounts to less than one percent of the $2.8 billion fund.

Two million more children in the United States have been diagnosed with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and one million more U.S. children were taking medication for ADHD over an 8 year period (2003-2004 to 2011-2012), according to a new study led by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

There is a statistic, that is commonly quoted, that says there are ten arc flash incidents per day resulting in one to two deaths per day.  This statistic is identified as coming from a report compiled by Capelli-Schellpfeffer, Inc. In a paragraph titled "Two Deaths Per Day" Fire Engineeringmagazine states:"An arc flash is an electrical release of energy hotter than the surface of the sun and capable of exploding with the strength of eight sticks of dynamite.

Safety investigators for the U.S. Department of Transportation's Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) have ordered Phoenix-based Autobuses Rayon, Inc., off the road after finding numerous violations. Among them: the carrier allowed three other unsafe bus companies that had been shut down by FMCSA to operate buses that illegally bore Autobuses Rayon registration markings.