ICE CLEAT BLOG

It’s true – the ice cleat and winter traction aid market is overwhelming. For the past 15+ years, we’ve done the research necessary to assist safety professionals in reducing winter slip and fall incidents. Here are some tips to help you simplify the options you have available in the marketplace. First, let’s review the two most important types of traction aids: 1. TRANSITIONAL TRACTION®: Can be worn both inside and outside without being removed.

Sometimes you think you've heard it all, and we have when it comes to excuses why people don't want to wear ice cleats. Time for a top 6 list... Too expensive. My employees won’t wear them. Can’t wear indoors. Can’t drive with them on. Employees won’t take care of them. We've tried everything and nothing works in my environment. Reality of buying the right ice traction for shoes or ice cleats from the right manufacturer. Ice cleats are far less expensive than the resulting costs associated with a slip and fall. Have you ever given your employees the chance to try them? If you did and they prov[…]

Sometimes, experience is earned the hard way. Bear with me while I start this story from the beginning. I had a conversation with a customer that left me confused. He had previously purchased ice traction cleats from Winter Walking while working in a different industry. Now he’s the safety lead with a new employer and he is looking to replicate the success he had with our winter PPE. He explained to me that his new employer has had a long history of winter slip and fall incidents in ice and snow conditions. He knew that he could likely solve these costly injuries with one or more of Winter Wal[…]

The thing about winter is, despite forecasts, you just never can know when a strong weather system will move across the country. But there are several things I do know for sure... First, I know that if the country gets any significant snow or ice, it means that normally clean walking surfaces will become slippery and, as a result, slips and falls will increase. Guaranteed.

When it comes to ice cleats, most are NOT safe to wear indoors. Traditional ice cleats are engineered for one thing – preventing slip and fall incidents on ice. Since Ice and snow don’t exist indoors, manufacturers don’t concentrate on indoor flooring materials when developing ice cleats to prevent slips and falls. This can severely complicate a company’s goal of reducing slip and fall incidents because, if traditional ice cleats are worn indoors, your employees are now at a high risk of causing a slip hazard. In other words, remember the OUTDOOR slipping incident you may avoid because ice cle[…]

I once had a conversation with a safety director from a large international company. He told me about how they used to have a lot of slip and falls due to ice and snow. And when they investigated ways to reduce winter slip and fall accidents, they concluded it was time to invest in ice cleats. He went on to describe how they did their research, testing, due diligence, etc. and ended up buying what they believed was the best ice cleat at the time. (Full disclosure: This isn’t an ice cleat my company manufactures.)