We all know that using knives comes with risks, and we’ve all heard the horror stories of accidental cut injuries or, worse, experienced them yourself.
 
We recently had a customer who had been reluctant to change over from the utility knives they had been using because they had never had a reported cut injury. They contacted us when they had two cutting accidents using their utility knives within one week.
 
While most businesses are aware of ‘safety knives, many are still not using them. This article addresses some of the most common misconceptions surrounding safety knives in the workplace.
Hand Injury

Let's look at a few misconceptions surrounding the use of safety knives:

  1. "We don't need to use safety knives because we haven't had any cuts for a while." We hear this all the time, and that's excellent news, but having no cut injuries in the past doesn't guarantee that you won't see any in the future. If a dangerous knife or tools are used, you are increasing the likelihood of it happening, and it is a risk that needs to be addressed immediately. Think of it this way, you haven't had a car accident in a while, but that doesn't mean you can stop wearing your seat belt or cancel your car insurance!
  2. "Safety knives are harder to use than regular knives" Safety knives require one less step than a standard utility knife. A traditional knife requires you to engage the blade, perform the cut and retract the blade manually. With a safety knife, you also engage the blade and perform the cut, but the last step is eliminated as the safety feature retracts the blade back into the handle when contact is lost with the cutting material.
  3. "Safety knives are too expensive" When you way up the direct and indirect cost of injury on business, individuals, and the community spending slightly more on a safety knife is well worth the initial outlay. The level of costs can vary with the severity of an injury, and while direct costs are easy to measure, indirect costs have a far greater effect. It is estimated that for every dollar spent on indirect costs associated with a workplace injury, there are another $5-7 in indirect costs.
  4.  "Safety knives don't cut the wide variety of materials that regular knives do" This is true. A utility knife will cut everything, including the user! A safety knife will cut all general industrial materials; you just need to be using the right tool for the job. For example, a person cutting shrink wrap all day will be using a different safety cutter than a person cutting triple wall boxes.
 

 

Whilst the above misconceptions are all legitimate concerns with a little insight and research you can see that there is not any reason why a safety knife cannot be used in replacement of a standard utility or open-bladed knife.

To discuss how you can improve cutting safety in your workplace contact us today to discuss your needs.

Phone: 61 3 5940 4476

Email: [email protected]