Retail car sales and repair dealerships are busy places. Some of the potential employee hazards are more obvious than others. However, there are practical ways to help prevent injuries to service techs, body shop and parts employees, and also sales and administrative people (who typically incur infrequent but severe and costly workers' compensation claims).

The most likely causes of serious employee injuries for car dealers are:

• Trips, slips and falls
• Lifting or carrying heavy parts and components
• Repetitive activities, most often for administrative employees who accomplish computer related tasks, but also for members of service departments
• Severe cuts and lacerations
• Vehicle accidents involving salespeople and parts drivers

Minor cuts, lacerations, bruises, burns and eye injuries are common sources of less damaging incidents. However, eye mishaps from such things as grinding, exposure to irritant liquids or chemicals and improper use of compressed air can cause serious lost time injuries. Service technicians often suffer eye contact with dirt or other material while performing overhead work on vehicles. At a minimum, these often require minor medical attention and result in lost production time.

The keys to success in preventing car dealership employee injuries include:

1. Recognizing that unsafe conditions, procedures and employee actions (and usually a combination of these) cause injuries. All of these causes can be controlled effectively.
2. Developing a practical, task-specific Injury & Illness Prevention Program that emphasizes: effective identification and correction of hazards; employee training and accountability; supervisor involvement and responsibility; inclusion of all employees and all departments; and communication.
3. Ownership and management that communicate commitment, support and the expectation that all members of the dealership team will work together to establish and maintain the safest possible workplace.

Don't perform manual lifting if your task can be completed with hoists, forklifts or other mechanical equipment.

If you must lift manually, get help from other employees, if possible.

Tips for proper manual lifting:

• Check the route to make sure it's free of obstructions, water and other trip-and-fall hazards.
• Check the weight of the item.
• Place your feet close to the object, bend your knees and get a firm hand hold. Lift smoothly, primarily using your leg muscles.
• Lift straight up, keeping the load close to your body, without twisting or turning.
• Turn your body by changing foot position as you start walking, rather than twisting.
• Set down the load slowly, bending your knees. Do not let go until you've lowered it securely onto the floor.
• Transport carts by pushing-not pulling.

• Regularly inspect all lifts and hoists. Check oil levels.
• Safety devices should be maintained fully operable.
• Never block lift or hoist control valves open or shut or leave them unattended.
• Check to see that adapters are set accurately, or that frame contact devices are in firm contact with car underbeds.
• Place the vehicle in neutral and release the parking brake when moving them using electric vehicle pushers. Avoid using hydraulic floor jacks to relocate vehicles.
• Always use the right type of jack for the job (including transmission jacks).
• Never get under a vehicle that is not properly supported by jack stands.

Down-time defeats production and dealership profitability goals for the following reasons:

• The absence - whether brief or lengthy - of an experienced employee can involve overtime, increase the likelihood of other short-handed employee injuries, and require the hiring and training of a replacement worker.
• Some injuries involve customers or vendors with probable litigation settlements.
• Damage to equipment, facilities or customers' vehicles or other property can result.
• OSHA may visit and levy fines.
• Employee injuries can cause significant increases in insurance costs.
  • $50,000 more insurance premium would require $2,500,000 additional sales to recover at a 2% profit margin

Help protect your financial bottom line by maximizing production through minimizing employee injuries. Develop and use an effective, practical safety program.

You can tell a truly professional service tech by the condition and use of his or her tools. Here are some tips to prevent injuries from the use of hand tools:

• Clean your tools after every use and check for damage or wear.
• Immediately replace, dress or repair tools with defects.

Working with tools that aren't right can be like walking through a mine field. You don't know when you're going to get hurt, but you know it's going to happen.

Look for:

• Cold chisels with mushroomed heads
• Cracked, loose or broken handles
• Slipping or worn socket wrench ratchets or adjustable wrenches
• Hammers with loose heads
• Files without handles
• Cracked or rounded box ends, open ends and sockets
• Use the right tool for the job
• Don't use cheater pipes
• Using a manual wrench? Pull instead of pushing for added control and less chance of injury

Never use standard sockets on an impact tool.

Never carry tools, especially pointed or sharp ones, in your pockets. A slip, fall or other wrong move can cause serious injury.

All dealership employees who perform tasks which could result in eye injuries should protect both eyes to ensure their (and your) future.

Service techs and body shop employees should wear appropriate eye protection at all times while on the job.

Some hazards are more obvious than others. For example, using a stationary or pneumatic grinder or chemicals which contain acids or caustics could cause permanent eye damage.

Working under vehicles without eye protection makes the likelihood of getting dirt or pieces of metal in eyes a virtual certainty. It can also slow the work down so it takes longer to perform a job. In that situation, safety glasses with side shields and brow guards made to ANSI (American National Standards Institute) specifications probably would be sufficient protection.

In other cases, safety goggles are necessary for protection, such as the use of hazardous liquids. Proper grinding precaution requires double protection: safety goggles or glasses for eye protection and a face shield to provide additional eye protection and to prevent severe injuries to the face.

It is much better to wear eye protection more often than less.

Dealership eye injuries are not difficult to prevent. All it takes is the development, implementation and enforcement of an effective eye protection program.

Here's a practical checklist to use when explaining to employees the important subjects covered by these sheets:

1. Substance Identification:
   • Name of chemical
   • Name and address of manufacturer
   • Emergency telephone number
2. Hazardous Ingredients:
   • Lists chemicals that are harmful
   • Lists the concentrations of a substance to which you can be exposed. These are known as permissible exposure limits (PELs), set by OSHA, and the threshold limit values (TLVs), set by the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists.
3. Physical and Chemical Data
   • Appearance and odor
   • Vapor pressure - at what rate does it evaporate?
   • Boiling point
4. Fire and Explosion Hazard:
   • Temperature the substance can ignite, known as the flash point. If the substance is flammable, it ignites below 100° F.
   • What types of extinguishing media to use
5. Reactivity Data:
   • Incompatibility - will the substance react when coming in contact with other substances or conditions? Instability - will environmental conditions, such as heat, cause a dangerous reaction?
6. Health Hazard Data:
   • Route of entry - inhalation, skin or ingestion
   • Acute and/or chronic effects
   • Signs and symptoms
   • Emergency procedures
7. Precautions for Safe Handling:
   • What to do if substance spills
   • Handling and storage practices
   • Disposal methods
8. Control Measures:
   • Types of personal protective equipment to use
   • Ventilation requirements
   • Personal hygiene practices

er·go·nom·ics \,ûrg-go-'näm-iks\ -

The science of work.

To prevent an injury, follow these safety tips on how to properly mount and dismount the cab:

• Maintain a three-point contact with the cab while climbing. Keep body contact by either placing both feet and one hand or both hands and one foot on the cab.
• Never jump out of the cab. Assure all foot and hand holds are secure and tight on your cab when climbing.
• Never exit with your back to the cab. Always exit by facing the cab.
• Check the ground condition for uneven ground and holes before exiting a cab.
• Do not carry items when climbing. Place items in cab before climbing.
• Do not climb over clutter. Keep cab floors clean and remove all objects.
• Keep set of steps clean on the cab. Carpeted steps should be hazardless.
• Wear proper footwear to avoid slips.