What are safety Signs and signals and what are their shape, color etc.? Do you know The Health and Safety (Safety Signs and Signals) Regulations 1996? What are the precautions to be taken while displaying Safety signs and signals?

What are safety Signs and signals and what are their shape, color etc.? Do you know The Health and Safety (Safety Signs and Signals) Regulations 1996? What are the precautions to be taken while displaying Safety signs and signals?

Safety Signs and signals are being used by any organisation at workplace to aware workforce about the set of instructions without physically present. While moving around the workplace, workforce look at those and understand the objective of signage’s and signals. For example traditional safety signs such as ‘No entry’ signs, and other means of communicating health and safety information such as hand signals, acoustic signals (eg warning sirens on machines) and verbal communications such as prerecorded evacuation messages. If you are an employer you have a legal duty to consult with your employees on matters relating to health and safety in the workplace. Signboards can be of the following types:

1-      Prohibition signage

2-      Warning Signage

3-      Mandatory Signage

4-      Emergency escape or first aid signage

Hand signal – a movement or position of the arms or hands giving a recognized signal and guiding people who are carrying out maneuvers which are a hazard or danger to people. Usually this is related to traffic signals and rigger signals at workplace.

Safety Signs Colors:

Prohibition Sign and Danger alarm- Red

Warning Sign – Yellow

Mandatory Sign- Blue

Emergency Escape, First aid and No Danger Sign- Green

Safety Signs Instructions:

Prohibition Sign and Danger alarm- Dangerous behaviour; stop; shutdown; emergency cut-out devices; evacuate

Warning Sign- Be careful; take precautions; examine

Mandatory Sign- Specific behaviour or action, eg wear protective equipment

Emergency Escape, First aid and No Danger Sign- Doors; exits; escape routes; equipment, facilities return to normal

Precautions while using signboard:

1-      They are large enough for visibility and free from any ambiguity.

2-      Adequate illumination is present.

3-      Durable, fastened properly and maintained.

4-      Avoid using too many signboards in a single place.

5-      Obsolete information signboard shall be removed immediately post obsolete information.

6-      Only required information and as less as much possible shall be provided in pictogram.

Signboards Dimensions and its background:

1-      Prohibition Sign:

a)      round shape;

b)      Black pictogram on white background, red edging and diagonal line (the red part to take up at least 35% of the area of the sign).

2-      Warning Sign:

Intrinsic features:

(a)- Triangular shape;

(b) Black pictogram on a yellow background with black edging (the yellow part to take up at least 50% of the area of the sign).

3-      Mandatory Sign:

Intrinsic features:

(a) Round shape;

(b) White pictogram on a blue background (the blue part to take up at least 50% of the area of the sign).

4-      Emergency Escape or First Aid Sign:

Intrinsic features:

(a) Rectangular or square shape;

(b) White pictogram on a green background (the green part to take up at least 50% of the area of the sign).

www.hse.gov.uk
https://www.osha.gov