NUDE MEGAN FOX PHOTO CAUSES INDUSTRIAL ACCIDENTS

Well now you are here, I assume that headline distracted you away from what you were doing but I hope it didn’t cause you any serious injury or get you into strife. Motorola used Megan Fox in a Superbowl ad showing how an “innocent” photo sent by cell phone could cause a serious amount of grief for the recipients (OK…..scroll down to see the ad).

But seriously, given the number of electronic devices now possessed and used by workers, pedestrians, drivers etc, some for personal/social reasons and some actually for work, it is becoming a serious concern in that it is increasingly more difficult to keep up with their introduction and maintain the currency of bans or whatever controls we deem necessary and appropriate.

Phil La Duke recently wrote two blog articles and delivered a speech at the National Safety Council Annual Conference on the subject – they are well worth a read:

Some Extracts on the distracts articles:

So What’s The Problem?

Distraction is a key contributor to human error and can impair judgment to an extent comparable to alcohol; distracted drivers are in an increasing number of traffic accidents. While most people are aware of the dangers of distracting devices fewer recognize the dangers of merely walking while listening to music, checking email, or simply being distracted

The Connectivity Dichotomy

Banning distracting devices is the kind of knee-jerk reaction we’ve come to know and love from safety professionals, but it isn’t feasible or even advisable.

Defining Distracting Devices

Crafting a reasonably specific definition of exactly what constitutes a distracting device is tricky. The temptation is to define a distracting device as “any thing that substantially interferes with an individual’s ability to focus on his or her job”. While this definition certainly nails it from a definition standpoint it really isn’t practical. Under this definition anything from a yoyo to a portable gaming system, and while that is great from a ease of enforcement standpoint it really doesn’t provide guidance that the workers can use to work safer.

There’s another problem in focusing on the device—no matter how comprehensive the list of distracting devices you create, additional device enter the workplace so rapidly that an all encompassing list is impossible to create and keep current.

Arguments for Banning Distracting Devices

The arguments for banning distracting devices are clear and make a lot of sense. First and foremost, they are dangerous, but then so are a lot of things that we judge as being worth the risk. Driving and traffic related accidents consistently rank as one of the leading causes of workplace fatalities, and there is consensus that many of these deaths could have been prevented had there been less distraction of drivers.

Nude Megan Fox photo causes industrial accidents: