Safety Shoes

Safety Shoes
Typical foot injury is caused by objects falling fewer than 4 feet and the median weight was about 65 pounds. Most workers are injured while performing their normal job activities at their worksites.

For protection of feet and legs from falling or rolling objects, sharp objects, molten metal, hot surfaces, and wet slippery surfaces, workers should use appropriate foot guards, safety shoes, or boots and leggings. Leggings protect the lower leg and feet from molten metal or welding sparks. Safety snaps permit their rapid removal.

How are safety boots and footwear categorized?

Safety footwear is available in a range of type/style, including:
Safety boots: the most common type of safety footwear, incorporating protective toe-caps with many other safety features including slip-resistant soles, penetration-resistant mid-soles and insulation against extremes of heat and cold.

Safety shoes: like safety boots, these usually have protective steel toe-caps although, as with safety boots, are available ‘metal free’ – so called composite footwear – which are lighter.

Safety trainers: perhaps considered more aesthetically appealing by wearers, these look more casual. Some have steel toe caps while others are plastic – referred to as composite toe caps (as above).ilh

Riggers: these have been described as ‘a real stalwart of industrial footwear’4. A rigger boot is a particular type of pull-on safety boot; the name “rigger” comes from the fact that they were standard issue for workers on the offshore oil rigs in the North Sea, but are nowadays worn by most types of manual worker as a general purpose work boot. Concerns with this type of safety footwear have been raised, including a lack of ankle support.

Wellingtons: usually made of rubber and used for working in wet conditions, these are also useful in jobs where the footwear needs to be washed and disinfected for hygiene reasons, eg in the food and the chemical industries.

Clogs: these may also be used as safety footwear. They are traditionally made from beech wood and may be fitted with steel toe-caps and thin rubber soles for quieter tread.

Ladies ranges: safety footwear for women in a range of styles (boot, shoe, trainer) with the required key features such as steel toe caps, heat resistant midsoles and oil repellent soles.

The EN Standards
The quickest way to make sure any piece of footwear satisfies the “essential requirements” to protect workers as set out in the PPE Regulations is to be sure it is certified to the relevant EN standards.

The safety features of footwear are tested according to a set of European test standards written into EN ISO 20344:2004 (revised by ISO 20344:2011). The performance specifications are given in an associated set of standards, namely:

EN ISO 20345:2004 (replaced by 20345:2011 – see below) for safety footwear: specifies a standard of 200 joules impact resistance (equivalent to a 20kg weight dropped 1020mm onto the toes), and a 15KN compression test (equivalent to 1.5 tones resting on the toe area).

EN ISO 20346:2004 for protective footwear: specifies a lesser standard of 100 joules impact resistance, and a 10KN compression test.

EN ISO 20347:2004 for occupational footwear: can have many of the features of safety and/or protective footwear but without the safety toecap.