Group Assistant Editor Maria Woodie discusses how to create a culture of safety at the carwash in the article “Risk assessment,” featured in a past issue of Professional Carwashing & Detailing.
Late last year, a carwash manager who took a rotating brush for a spin made headlines, and the PC&D team featured this mishap as a Video of the Week, which you can find here. Although he was able to laugh off the incident, the outcome could have been much more serious.
Safety should be a top priority for every carwash. In the article, Gina Houser, health and safety coordinator for Autobell® Car Wash Inc., notes that being responsible and proactive when it comes to carwash safety is just good business and is also the right thing to do.
“You will see the benefits in employee satisfaction; customers will notice; and many times the expenditures put forth to create or bolster a safety program are far cheaper than one workers’ compensation claim,” she adds in the article. “You cannot replace a life or bring back someone’s quality of life once it changes.”
To keep your employees, and also customers, safe, it’s imperative to create a safety program for your carwash that is unique to your specific operations, says Woodie in the article. “Any area involving moving equipment is dangerous. Remember that moving equipment includes vehicles as well,” asserts Houser in the article. “When it comes to vehicles, evaluate your work flow. Do drivers stay in the vehicle? Do your employees have custody of the vehicle at any time? Train employees to never place themselves between two vehicles and to always watch their surroundings.”
For simple ways to boost safety at a conveyor carwash, PC&D team created the infographic below.
You can also download the infographic here.
Read more about carwash safety by perusing through our special two-part article. You can find part one, which discusses common safety risks, here. And check out part two, which shares how to create a safety program and the importance of training carwash employees, here.
