Hi I am carrying out personal dose levels in an environment where there are diesel counter balance trucks. It is possible the first action level will be breached (but not the second) on daily doseage, and I wondered if anyone has experience of supplying hearing protection in this type of environment, where it is important to be able to hear the sound of a horn being sounded by a truck. What product or type of product would you recommend. Thanks Ian

Hearing protection comes with an 'SNR' figure that gives a guide to how many dB reduction it gives. If you are not far above the action level you would want hearing protection with a fairly low SNR.

The only other thing you might like to consider is the peak levels that FLT drivers are often exposed to, for example the 'clang' that unloaded forks might make when the truck runs over expansion joints or such like. In some cases these can reach very high levels. This would be taken into account, should you use the dosemeter badges as previously described Robert I

Ian, It is advisable to get your exposure below the Lower Exposure Action Level, however if you use ear protection with a high SNR you will reduce the level that the person can hear to much. This will isolate them and they will not be able to hear traffic or other alarms (fire etc). Also any SNR should be reduced by 4 to allow for the fit not being exactly as the manufacturer tested (wearing glasses, long hair, different shaped head/ear). Therefore if the manufacturer says that an item has a SNR of 20, only use 16 for your calculations. If the noise level is between the Lower and Upper Action Values, you may only need to remove the person from the noise source to reduce the level accordingly - job rotation and breaks may suffice.

I think a product called "EAR caps" might suit this application. These are disposable foam pads that attach to a reusable plastic band that is worn around the neck. But the best thing to do would be to get in some samples of different products from a catalogue or direct from a supplier and ask the drivers to try them out to find out what works best for them.

You could check with some of the suppliers of the personalised moulded plugs as they "claim" that there products filter out the unwanted frequencies whilst still allowing the required frequencies through i.e. allow speech, talk on phone, hear alarms etc. How true this is in practice I do not know. A typical company below: http://www.protecthear.co.uk/