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July 19, 2000 10:24 AM, EDT

Truck maintenance shops used to call to mind images of dreary, poorly-lit places where sparks from welding torches cascade to the floor near unlabeled containers of liquids.

That would have been a relatively accurate picture 30 or more years ago, said Russelle McCollough, safety and health specialist with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Conditions like these may still exist somewhere, but the majority of shops are cleaner, better lighted and safer in many ways today than they were before OSHA was launched in 1971, McCollough and others contend.

OSHA inspections and the threat of lawsuits have probably done more to bring about safety improvements in trucking garages than anything else, said several people who work in the industry.

Organized to address workplace safety, OSHA believes its work has had a salutary effect. According to statistics kept by the agency, there were 14,000 job-related deaths in all industries in 1970. By 1999, the number of such fatalities had declined to 6,000. McCollough maintains that OSHA intervention over the years is a major contributor to the reduction.

For the full story, see the July 17 print edition of Transport Topics. .