Staying Safe on the Road
As unprecedented and record-breaking cold warnings and snow storms have blanketed Northern British Columbia this winter, Coastal Gaslink is doing everything we can to ensure maximum road safety for our workers and the communities where we work.
The skies are darkening much sooner, and unpredictable weather patterns are increasing the risk of road accidents. In addition to working in remote and harsh regions of Northern B.C. – all in an effort to deliver economic benefits to local communities and families for decades to come – our workers face the unavoidable challenge of having to drive to and from their job everyday in order to continue the work Coastal Gaslink has set out to accomplish.
At Coastal GasLink, we believe zero is real – all injuries and incidents are preventable – and that ethos extends to safe driving. We take a number of precautions to ensure that our workers are showcasing safe driving behaviours on the road. We reinforce safe radio protocol on all forest service roads and all our workers are required to call in when entering a road system and at frequency change locations. Our people practice defensive driving at a safe speed and we monitor our team to ensure that our workers are well rested and fit to drive in the conditions at hand.
As a company, Coastal GasLink is continuously collecting data on worker behavior and geographical hot spots of areas of concern. We proactively recognize safe behaviors in the field and gather feedback from our workers relating to road hazards to better understand how we can continue to improve upon our safety performance.
One of our Field Safety Coordinators knows first-hand just how important road safety is. Lindsay Verhagen was involved in a serious collision while driving to work in October 2020. Since then, she has become an even stronger advocate for driving safety and making sure her team follows all of the driving protocols.
“The thing I’ve learned from my accident is don’t take life for granted, it can be gone like that,” she said, snapping her fingers. “That accident made me appreciate a lot of things that I don’t think I did before, and it made me feel like I got a second chance, and I’m grateful for it.”
At the end of the day, we want to make sure everyone gets home safe as we continue to progress towards our goal of zero incidents. Coastal GasLink is working to ensure our workers and local communities get to see their families and children at the end of each and every day.