Safety Speaker John’s Tips – Sharing Safety Stories

Safety Speaker John’s Tips – Sharing Safety Stories With Your Friends
As an international safety speaker, I have the privilege of sharing safety stories with people all around the world. In my presentation, “Safety For Effective Leaders”, I point out people know what is important to you in life by what they hear you talk about. How often do your friends and family hear you talk about safety? Whenever a situation occurs in your life that illustrates a hazard you avoided or how safety knowledge protected you there is a natural opportunity to share that story with the people you care about.
Encourage Your Employees To Tell Safety Stories
Remind people you work with how they can have a big impact on those they care about by sharing safety stories with them. When we tell stories from our own life they have great credibility with the people we know and love. A fellow employee sharing how their Personal Protective Equipment saved them really sends the safety message home.

How and Where To Share Safety Stories?
What inspired me to write this article was a Facebook post by a young man who was a member of my 2010 National Boy Scout Jamboree troop. His name is Ross Scott and he is one of those youth with whom I was blessed to work. He went on to earn his Eagle Scout and best of all, served as an Assistant Scoutmaster for the 2013 National Jamboree. Right now, he is working and earning money for college as a truck driver. I love watching out for his Facebook posts as he travels across the United States.

Recently, he wrote two posts about safety to help protect his friends. This is great because he has safety insights they never would experience and he can help them by sharing. Along with everything else he posts he shared these and several other safety stories or insights. How great is it that his peers learn a safety lesson from a friend they like and respect. Ross gave me permission to publish the posts here.

“PUBLIC SAFETY MESSAGE…. Ross style.
IF you see a sign warning a lane is about to end soon. I strongly recommend that you do so as soon as you see the sign. Don’t speed up and try to pass the semi truck when the lane is ending.
Why do I recommend this? Because this helps cut down on bottle necking and potential accidents.
Why am I posting this?
Today I could have been involved in a very serious accident potentially killing people today for being stupid.
I’m in the center lane passing traffic (I was going the speed limit and was safe to do so). The left lane was ending and all these cars were trying to pass me so they wouldn’t get stuck behind a semi. As the lane ends (about the last 150 feet) I have a pickup that tries to pass and not being able to switch lanes I stay in my lane. This guy drove on the shoulder honking his horn at me and passed me. Risking his life, and his passengers. All because he didn’t want to get stuck behind a semi. I also suspect that there were children in the pickup with him.
Luckily there was just enough room in front of me so that I didn’t have to slam on my brakes and nothing happened to the pickup.
I did let the driver know that I was upset and that was a stupid move.”

Post Number Two
Had another especially close call. This one was a car veering into my lane. I’m going 55-60 in a 60. A car to my left on a two lane road decides that they’re taking that exit. They didn’t check their mirrors. My front bumper was right at their rear axle. To make things more interesting I have a lot of hazmat on board.”
The best part of these stories is that Ross’s friends and the friends of his friends were able to read them. Also I was impressed by several of the comments people made after reading the posts.
Share Safety Every Way You Can
Social media might not be your area of expertise; however, it reaches a huge audience. Remind your employees to share something they learned at your safety briefing with their friends on Facebook, Twitter, Google + and any of their favorites. Any way or place you communicate with others is an opportunity to share safety and by doing so watch out for the safety of others.
Let A Great Safety Story Teller Get Results For You
When you need to effectively reach employees with a life-changing safety message, give Diane Weiss a call at 209-745-9419 and bring John to your site to discover injury preventing solutions. You can email her at diane@drebinger.com
Until next week,
I’ll be, “Watching Out For Everyone’s Safety®”
Safety Speaker John
© 2015 John Drebinger Presentations
Permission to use granted when credited and contact information included. www.drebinger.com +1 209.745.9419