Most tire service bays are not statistically dangerous places. In 2024 the repair and maintenance sector recorded 2.0 recordable injury cases per 100 workers, below the 2.3 average across all of private industry. But when an injury does happen on a bay floor, it lands on two body parts far more than chance would predict: the hands and the eyes. Roughly 2,000 U.S. workers a day sustain a job related eye injury that needs medical treatment, and upper extremities are the body region most often behind lost time cases. Both are also the cheapest parts to protect and among the most expensive to injure, and OSHA already requires the protection under standards 1910.133 and 1910.138.
Our new research report, the Bay Floor Injury Ledger, puts the numbers behind those two duties: what the injury data says, what a single hand or eye injury actually costs, why the exposure is rising with an aging fleet, and a six step checklist a shop can run this quarter. Every figure is sourced to NIOSH, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the National Safety Council, Liberty Mutual, and the OSHA standards themselves. Read the full report at https://chaossupplies.com/pages/bay-floor-injury-ledger, and download the print edition from the page.