Since switching to uvex safety glasses and storage pouches,
Lanes Group’s Rail Division has not had any reported eye
related injuries and wastage has been cut

Drainage specialist Lanes Group’s Rail
Division provides a vital overnight
maintenance service to both
London Underground (LU) and Tube Lines
(TL). The company is contracted to maintain
and correct premises and civils faults in LU
and TL’s assets, which include drainage
systems, pipe work, roofing, glazing tiles and
locks.

Scott Tracey is health and safety
manager of the Rail Division of Lanes Group,
with overall responsibility for the health and
safety of 150 workers on the LU and TL
contracts. He supervises and liaises with
Lanes’ own staff and sub-contractors,
training workers in working safely, as well as
writing company procedures, undertaking
risk assessments and procuring and testing
equipment and personal protective
equipment (PPE).

Until two years ago, Lanes had been
experiencing a high level of wastage of safety
glasses; the spectacles
continually misted up
and easily became
scratched, since they
did not have anti-mist
or anti-scratch coatings.

In addition, the wearers
had nowhere to put the
specs when they took
them off.

Scott Tracey explains:
“The men used to wear the
glasses and then put them in
their vans. The glasses were not practical or
user-friendly. We were getting through at
least two to three pairs a week for each
worker.”

Trial of safety specs
Tracey spoke to his directors to obtain their
approval for trialling new safety specs
supplied by uvex. The trials lasted two
months and cost the company nothing. “We
tried three different types of glasses, but
after feedback from the users, chose the
uvex Winner and uvex X-trend safety
spectacles,” he says.

“The Winner is a comfortable, flexible,
frameless metal spectacle with large lenses
that gives clear visibility in all directions; the
X-trend has a large wrap-around lens, giving
unobstructed vision in all directions. Both
protect the whole eye area.

“The guys use the specs every night for
every type of maintenance activity,
from mixing up
cement-based products and concrete, to
repairing the tiling or plumbing systems,”
says Tracey.

Lanes also purchased uvex’s protective
pouches for storing the glasses, which its
workers adapted to wear on the back of their
helmets by attaching them to the band around
the back of the helmet using Velcro clips.

Feedback
Tracey says that the men are delighted with
the X-trend and Winner spectacles, which
they are allowed to choose according to the
style they prefer.

“The feedback we have been given is that
because of the anti-mist coating on the
lenses, the specs don’t mist up, clouding their
vision. The scratch-resistant coating ensures
they don’t get damaged and this is further
helped by the protective pouch being to hand
all the time on their helmets. It encourages
the guys to wear the glasses, so has enhanced
safety on all the sites.

“Wearing safety specs used to be a big
issue, but now the guys are much more
happy to wear them,” he adds.

Now that Lane’s maintenance workers
wear the protective pouches for the glasses
on the backs of their helmets, they avoid
getting scratched or damaged in transit on
their vehicles’ dashboards or thrown into
tool bags after they have worn them, where
they quickly used to become ineffectual.

In addition, the number of men wearing
the glasses has increased: “Although it is not
mandatory for workers to wear safety glasses,
we are finding that nearly all our operatives
are wearing them by choice, for all activities
we undertake,” reports Tracey.

Working on the London Underground is
dirty work and wearing the specs on helmets
rather than belts keeps them cleaner. The
user always knows where the glasses are,
avoiding the issue of them slipping around
the body when worn on a belt. “Not
everyone on site wears a belt, but everyone
wears a safety helmet,” Tracey points out.

According to the HSE, there are more
than 2500 reportable eye injuries at work
each year in the UK, a figure considered to
be far lower than the actual number of
injuries, due to under-reporting. Since
switching to the uvex glasses Lanes Group
reports that it has not had any reported eyerelated
injuries.

Cost savings
Although they are
initially more expensive than
the glasses previously used, they
have enabled huge cost savings for the
company, since each pair now lasts around
two months, rather than having to be thrown
away after a few days’ use. They are thus
extremely cost-effective. “We now get an
extra seven weeks’ worth of wear at no extra
cost to ourselves,” says Tracey.

Scott Tracey gave a presentation to the
company’s directors on the cost savings of
using uvex’s safety glasses.

“The directors were quite astounded by
the results of the trials and were very pleased.

Since then we have not looked back,” he
concludes.