28 Canadian Occupational Safety www.cos-mag.com
L
ooking for the best slip resistant shoe on the market? Buy a pair with
circles on the soles for superior grip. No, wait. Shop for soles with
squares, they bite better. Be sure to get soles with rubber for excellent
traction. Scratch that. Polyurethane is better. What was the question?
Finding the right slip resistant footwear can be confusing. The
options seem endless with numerous materials, tread designs and countless
different opinions about what makes a shoe or boot particularly grippy. But
this is an important decision, one well worth the hassle of investigating. More
than 42,000 workers are injured each year due to slips, trips and falls. That
number translates into 17 per cent of the time-loss injuries covered by workers'
compensation boards and commissions, according to the Association of Work-
ers' Compensation Boards of Canada.
Better footwear may help reduce the number of slips and trips among
Canadian workers. It's time for some sole searching.
WINTER GRIP
With winter fast approaching, many companies and managers seek slip resis-
tant footwear to help ensure employee safety. That search should start from
the bottom: look for soles designed for high grip. Yet already, this is where
confusion may set in. For instance, some footwear experts recommend soles
that feature circles, arguing that the rounded edges allow liquid and debris to
escape from beneath the foot more effectively than squares.
But Jeff Huckle, for one, isn't completely sold on circles.
"Circles work alright," says the product manager for Dickies footwear at
Kodiak Group Holdings in Cambridge, Ont. "In our experience, 90-degree
angles are best. They create biting edges that make contact with the ground."
Further confounding matters is the question of material: what should the soles
be made of? In a 2010 study, the Center for Inclusive Design and Environmental
DECIPHERING THE DIFFERENT
SLIP RESISTANT FOOTWEAR
FOR WINTER WEATHER
By Stefan Dubowski
get
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