30 CFR § 56.14107 – Moving machine parts.

This is the most cited violation MSHA has issued in calendar year 2009. This goes from 1/1/2009 until the writing of this post 12/2/2009

Lets look at this standard. We know there is a very good reason for this rule since it is wrote in the CFR. Always remember that MSHA was enacted with the Federal Mine Safety & Health Act of 1977 because of poor treatment to miners in U.S. mines by the operators that employed them. The CFR is written in blood, not literally obviously, but figuratively. Every rule that has been written to the book is there because a miner was injured or killed performing his assigned and sometimes not assigned duties.

The 30 CFR § 56.14107 states:

(a) Moving machine parts shall be guarded to protect persons from contacting gears, sprockets, chains, drive, head, tail, and takeup pulleys, flywheels, couplings, shafts, fan blades, and similar moving parts that can cause injury.

(b) Guards shall not be required where the exposed moving parts are at least seven feet away from walking or working surfaces.

The program policy manual states:

56/57.14107 Moving Machine Parts
All moving parts identified under this standard are to be guarded with adequately constructed, installed and maintained guards to provide the required protection. The use of chains to rail off walkways and travelways near moving machine parts, with or without the posting of warning signs in lieu of guards, is not in compliance with this standard.

Let’s take a look at the above paragraph. Your operation is not allowed to chain or ‘rope off’ a area to comply with this rule even if you add signs. If you have exposed moving machinery parts you must guard each and every one of them individually unless they are ‘guarded by location’. Guarded by Location means the hazard is out of the reach of normal operations.

Conveyor belt rollers are not to be construed as “similar exposed moving machine parts” under the standard and cannot be cited for the absence of guards and violation of this standard where skirt boards exist along the belt. However, inspectors should recognize the accident potential, bring the hazard to the attention of the mine operators, and recommend appropriate safeguards to prevent injuries.

So MSHA says that conveyor belt rollers are NOT considered in this rule. Does this mean that conveyor belt rollers are not dangerous? No! As a safety conscious operator you know that they are. The MSHA inspector, if he/she are doing their job, should strongly suggest that you guard your rollers too especially the return rollers under the conveyor frame. You should make sure your employees know to stay away from any moving belt or machinery parts.

This standard is to be cited when a guard at conveyor locations does not extend a distance sufficient to prevent any parts of a person from accidentally getting behind the guard and becoming caught, or in those instances when there is no guard at the conveyor-drive, conveyor-head, conveyor-tail, or conveyor take-up pulleys.

So just what is this passage saying? In short you will get cited under this rule if a person can extend any part of their body through or around the guard and contact moving parts or if no guard is being used on head pulleys, tail pulleys, conveyor drives, or the take-up pulleys. If a person can reach their finder through your guard and touch the machine you are NOT in compliance.

Best Practice: When in doubt guard it.

There have been 230 citations for this standard alone this year. It comes in at a astounding 7.78% of all citations issued so far. Come on folks lets get this under control. If we all work together and train our miners we can dramatically reduce this number by this time next year. Train your miners to recognize and report every single possibility that your operation is violating this standard. In your daily inspection of your facility make sure you take a good look at your current guarding applications and see if you can access any area of your head, tail and drive components. Offer a reward for the miner that identifies and reports the most safety violations and don’t let yourself or your miners get into the all so easy “desensitization”. This means if you see a hazard day after day you get used to seeing that hazard. When you see a hazard fix it immediately.

If you have any suggestions or best practices you would like to share feel free to do so below. I encourage you to comment here as it may save a life.


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