What if we treated seat belts like bump tests..?

Today when you get in your car I want you to try something that by the numbers isn’t very risky at all. It is simple to do in fact. Don’t buckle your seat belt. That is right I said don’t buckle your seat belt. Or I will challenge you go further, don’t buckle it for 52 days straight. Then you can buckle it again for a day (we don’t want to be too crazy) then go another 52 days without buckling it. Why am I so confident this won’t be risky? According to a recent study by the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America, (a trade association that analyzes insurance data). The average driver will file an auto accident claim once every 17.9 years. While that isn’t an exact summary of your risk for being in a car accident it does provide a decent proxy. And some of those are just minor fender benders. So, think about it you can go A LONG time without your seat belt, the numbers say you should be fine. But has that argument persuaded you? Probably not. Why is that? Why do we all know and believe that buckling our seat belts is a very important safety item to do each time? It has proven to drastically reduce fatalities. It is law even though the probability for an individual is rare where it will be needed. Does your company policy say to NOT buckle your seat belt?

Now I would like to bring your attention to how the average gas detection user approaches bump testing. A bump test is challenging a sensor to a known concentration of gas to verify it will respond in the appropriate manner. Bump Testing a gas detector and buckling a seat belt have very similar function and utility. While they don't prevent accidents, when utilized properly they can reduce the severity in the case of an incident. While a car has other safety features in the case of an accident (airbags, steel frame, etc..), the gas detector has none. As a matter of fact, a gas detector doesn’t provide any protection just awareness... that’s it. And the dirty little secret is that a bump test is the only way to know if a gas detector is properly functioning before each use.

So how common is it that the average gas detection user bump tests their gas monitor? In 2013 Industrial Scientific issued a White Paper reviewing 12 years of gas detection data (Dualsense Technology White Paper, By: Raghu Arunachalam, Ph.D). In it we discovered that gas detection users only bump test their monitor 20% of the time before each use, 15% never perform a bump test, and the mean is about once every 52 days.

How do we assess the risk of that behavior as it relates to our driving comparison? Industrial Scientific also knows that the average gas detector on iNet (A Subscription Based Gas Detection Program) goes into alarm once every 10 days. While these scenarios vary from being serious life threatening alarms to small alarms, it underscores just how common it is to encounter dangerous concentrations of hazardous gas (i.e an accident). Not only is the probability higher than a car accident, but we also know that a gas detector has more flaws than a car does.  

Take a second to let all of that sink in. Here we have a common scenario where a worker has a high likelihood of encountering a hazardous concentration of gas. And yet the average worker is only testing this critical piece of equipment to a vital test once every 52 days!? Doesn’t that seem like an unnecessary risk? Shouldn’t users of gas detection get that queasy feeling that they get when their seat belt isn’t buckled when they don't bump test each day? Every single manufacture of a gas detector has a bump test before each use advisory in their manual. Despite what you might have heard in the marketplace (or wanted to hear), check the manual. Go ahead. It is there.

Until recently issuing each field-based employee with a bottle of gas and a regulator was either quite costly and/or bulky. Additionally, the aerosol canisters have their draw backs. However, this month we are proud to announce the release of the Bump N Go. This is a tool kit for portable bump testing that can fit in a pocket. Each bottle can facilitate approx. 250 bump tests. That is roughly one year’s worth of bump testing. Now each employee can have access to a year’s worth of important safety checks on a critical piece of equipment that fits into the palm of their hand.

Right now, about 80% of your gas detection equipped workforce is doing the equivalent of driving without a seat belt. Please take a minute to think about what that could mean to each employee, the company, and their families should they encounter hazardous gas today. Are they walking around with a faulty sensor? Shouldn’t they know about it?