I'm sure you've seen a sign like this as you approach a road crew - a warning sign reinforcing the seriousness of driving too fast through a construction zone.

Why such a big jump in the penalty - doubling the fines? Because you could be endangering the lives of those young women and men wearing the hard hats and safety vests while they improve your roads, that's why!

Everyone seems to accept the doubling of fines in these high-risk circumstances when it comes to road crew safety... so why don't we apply the same principle to workplace safety in general?

This week the use of hand-held cellphones, Blackberries, other PDAs, iPods and other MP3 players, and handheld GPS systems while driving became illegal in Ontario, where I live and work. Now only hands-free devices can be used in the new "distracted driving" law.

I've long been a fan of the great, progressive work done by Work Safe BC... but now they've outdone themselves with an amazing, redesigned website that is social networked to the max - for their Raise your Hand campaign aimed at teens primarily and it includes:

If I were to ask you what "Gap Time" was - you probably wouldn't be able to tell me what it was.  In fact, up until a couple of years ago I probably couldn't have told you what it was either.  Recently, I was at an assembly where I asked the question about Gap Time to students, executives and unions leaders.   Nobody, except two young Mexican college students  were able to correctly give a definition for "Gap Time" which is - the period of time where new immigrants learn to adjust to language, and culture.

Over the past 10 years I have been astounded to realize how many workplace hazards really exist in our "safe" and "comfortable" society. While, I had been to hundreds of gas stations and hundreds of fast food joints I must admit that I rarely thought about who the person was that was closing up and how dangerous a job that could be.

In the past decade however I have been educated about the dangers that some of these jobs pose. In fact, rarely do I frequent one of these establishments where I don't look at the young employees and wonder if they are being left alone to lock-up, or if their employer cares enough about them to put proper protocols and buddy systems in place.