CONN-OSHA Answers Your Safety Questions: June 2024

06.13.2024
HR & Safety

Welcome to our monthly column featuring CONN-OSHA experts answering some of the most commonly asked safety questions from CBIA member companies.

Most of the responses from Catherine Zinsser, a CONN-OSHA occupational safety training specialist, will be on recordkeeping since that is the focus of most questions she fields.

But if you’d like to ask her a question on another topic, please email CBIA’s Phillip Montgomery.

He will treat all questions confidentially and never share any identifying company information with CONN-OSHA or anyone else.


Q: Employee A drives to work, parks their car in the company parking lot and is walking across the lot when theystruck by a car driven by employee B, who is commuting to work. Both employees were seriously injured in the accident. Is either case work-related?

Neither employee’s injuries are recordable. While the employee parking lot is part of the work environment under section 1904.5, injuries occurring there are not work-related if they meet the exception in section 1904.5(b)(2)(vii). 

Section 1904.5(b)(2)(vii) accepts injuries caused by motor vehicle accidents occurring on the company parking lot while the employee is commuting to and from work.

In the case in question, both employees’ injuries resulted from a motor vehicle accident in the company parking lot while the employees were commuting. Accordingly, the exception applies.

Q: How does OSHA define a “company parking lot” for purposes of recordkeeping?

Company parking lots are part of the employer’s premises and therefore part of the establishment. 

These areas are under the control of the employer, i.e. those parking areas where the employer can limit access (such as parking lots limited to the employer’s employees and visitors). 

On the other hand, a parking area where the employer does not have control (such as a parking lot outside of a building shared by different employers, or a public parking area like those found at a mall or beneath a multi-employer office building) would not be considered part of the employer’s establishment (except for the owner of the building or mall), and therefore not a company parking lot for purposes of OSHA recordkeeping.

Q: An employee experienced an injury or illness in the work environment before they “clocked in” for the day. Is the case considered work-related even if that employee was not officially “on the clock” for pay purposes?

Yes. For purposes of OSHA recordkeeping injuries and illnesses occurring in the work environment are considered work-related. 

Punching in and out with a time clock (or signing in and out) does not affect the outcome for determining work-relatedness. 

If the employee experienced a work-related injury or illness, and it meets one or more of the general recording criteria under section 1904.7, it must be entered on the employer’s OSHA 300 log.


For more information, contact CBIA’s Phillip Montgomery (860.244.1982).

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