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Resource Roads Demonstration Project to improve worker safety
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- Backgrounder: Project overview
- Frequently asked questions
- Introduction to safe practices on resource roads (PDF 633kb)
- Incident types on resource roads (PDF 212kb)
- Incident summaries (PDF 61kb)
Fort St. John, B.C., November 5, 2008 — Today, WorkSafeBC introduces the Resource Roads Safety Demonstration Project to the Fort St. John area — an initiative designed to improve safety for workers who travel along B.C.'s 400,000 kilometers of resource roads.
The Fort St. John region is one of two project areas where WorkSafeBC and key industrial stakeholders will work to enhance best practices and find solutions to safety concerns.
Resource roads are not considered public highways and are commonly known as “logging roads,” “industrial roads,” “forest service roads,” and “petroleum development roads.”
“While WorkSafeBC has been working with partners to address safety on resource roads for the last several years, we still see preventable fatalities and serious injuries,” said Diana Miles, WorkSafeBC’s Vice President of Worker and Employer Services. “These incidents cannot continue and we need to accelerate the process to help ensure each worker comes home at the end of the day.”
For many years, resource roads were built to access remote locations for a single user such as a forest company who constructed, maintained, and operated on the road. Today, a variety of industries and the general public often share that same road. As the number of users on existing resource roads increases, so does the number of roads built to accommodate the expansion of oil and gas, mining, and tree salvaging operations as a result of the pine beetle infestation.
“Not only are there numerous concerns from the log-hauling sector, but I have also received calls about resource road safety from oil and gas, mining, and community groups,” said Roger Harris, BC Forest Safety Council's Forest Safety Ombudsman. “Improving safety on resource roads is a complex task that cannot be accomplished in isolation. Making resource roads safer needs all the right groups at the table.”
To plan and implement the demonstration project, WorkSafeBC will work closely with a regional road safety management group comprised mainly of road licensees in an area southwest of Chetwynd.
“Worker safety — whether it’s in a truck or on a rig, should always be the top priority,” said Duane Mather, CEO and President, Nabors Canada. “This project will be a big step towards keeping our workers safe on resource roads.”
The demonstration project coordinates and builds upon the work that industry and others has been able to achieve to date and adds a necessary component of shared responsibilities for safety on the road systems.
Once the demonstration project is complete, a report will provide two examples of how safety responsibilities can be managed on resource roads and explore how new technologies may improve safety for users. The report will be the basis for developing a template for a provincial resource road safety strategy.
WorkSafeBC is an independent provincial statutory agency governed by a Board of Directors that serves about 2.3 million workers and more than 197,000 employers. WorkSafeBC was born from the historic compromise between B.C.'s workers and employers in 1917 where workers gave up the right to sue their employers and fellow workers for injuries on the job in return for a no-fault insurance program fully paid for by employers. The organization is committed to safe and healthy workplaces and to providing return-to-work rehabilitation and legislated compensation benefits.
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For more information, contact: |
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| Gladys Johnsen |
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