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The morning was devoted to housekeeping and completing Work Planning & Control activities and On-the-Job Training. This was followed by an afternoon of Quality Assurance and ES&H Team (QUEST) assessments and management walkthroughs.

Safety Day, an annual ATAP tradition, is an all-hands, all-hazards, all-day event.  Its “Clean Labs, Clean Shops, Clean Offices” mission primarily emphasizes good housekeeping and identifying hazards.

One Of Our Most Dangerous Pieces of Equipment: The Automobile

Just as Safety Day got rolling, a parked car did the same! Someone unfamiliar with our area, coming in for an unrelated meeting in a nearby building, parked on a slope.  The car rolled away, jumped a curb, and ended up partly over a retaining wall near Building 71.  Fortunately, the car was unoccupied and did not have the momentum to hit labs and offices.

Nearby ATAP personnel, following our Integrated Safety Management protocol, contacted Protective Services, notified their supervisor, and helped ensure the safety of others. It’s a reminder of the importance of setting one’s parking brake (and keeping it in proper adjustment), and “curbing” the wheels when using parking spaces on a slope.

Engineered measures were later taken to prevent cars from going over the retaining wall.

And remember, the speed limit throughout the Lab site is nowhere higher than 15 miles per hour — lower, as posted, in some special situations. Going slower gives you shorter stopping distances and more time to see and react to trouble. Sometimes applied physics indicates backing off the accelerator!