This story changed the way I do business.

By Roscoe Klausing

Almost 20 years ago, I was told a story about mower safety and efficiency that changed the way I do business.

A friend of mine was giving me a tour of a landscape maintenance company where he served as vice president. The company was large. They employed over 1,000 people. During the tour, one of his company’s maintenance crews arrived to mow the lawn.

As the crew started working, they placed traffic cones around their truck and trailer. As they unloaded equipment, I saw that each string trimmer and edger still had the debris guards installed. As larger equipment was unloaded, I watched employees engage roll over protection systems (ROPS) and deck discharge chutes. I had never seen such attention to safe practices.

While the crew was mowing, I noticed that they were producing a lot of thatch. They had to double and triple cut the lawn just to disperse the clumps of grass. “You know,” I said to my friend, “if you flip up the deck discharge chutes, the grass clippings won’t clump up.” That’s when he told me the story that changed my approach to mower safety and efficiency.

Several years earlier, my friend had found himself in a courtroom. An employee of his company had lost their finger in an accident while operating a mower on an embankment. The deck discharge chute was not installed on his mower and when the mower flipped, the employee’s finger made contact with the exposed blade.

During the trial, the plaintiff’s attorney asked why the discharge chute had been removed. The employee explained, “without the discharge chute, the grass clippings don’t clump up.” The plaintiff’s attorney went on to explain that this is what it looks like when a company puts efficiency and profits over the health and safety of its employees.

Maybe the employee still would have lost his finger if the discharge chute had been engaged. Maybe he was the one that took off the discharge chute in the first place? Regardless, when I heard this story, I realized that throughout my entire career I had watched professional landscapers remove or disengage safety features from equipment. These unsafe practices were so widely accepted, that day, watching that crew mow the lawn, I was surprised to see safety features in use.

We’ve come a long way in 20 years. Far more companies wear PPE and follow safe mowing practices than two decades ago. But we’ve got a long way to go. For the last 5 years, the landscape industry has been Kentucky’s most fatal industry. This is in large part due to rollovers of zero turn mowers. Our industry can do better. Here’s a short list of the minimum safety standards you should be enforcing on every one of the job sites where you mow.

✓ Wear safety glasses and earplugs.

✓ Wear boots, pants, and high vis clothing.

✓ Demarcate a work zone around trucks.

✓ Engage ROPS and wear seatbelts.

✓ Engage deck discharge chutes.

✓ Leave debris guards on string trimmers and edgers.

✓ Don’t mow steep embankments.