Printable job site safety signs with a scannable QR code

Accident-prevention signs are covered by 29 CFR 1910.145, and the ANSI Z535 series is the widely used design reference that complements it. The rules are simpler than most people expect, and they are mostly about color and wording: DANGER signs are reserved for immediate hazards that will cause death or serious injury, and use white text on a red panel. WARNING sits one step below for hazards that could cause death or serious injury, on orange. CAUTION covers hazards that may cause minor or moderate injury, in black on yellow. Green safety-instruction signs carry general safety information, and NOTICE signs in blue carry policy — never hazard warnings.

Two requirements are missed constantly on real sites. First, the wording must be concrete: "DANGER — Open trench, keep out" tells a worker what the hazard is and what to do; a bare "DANGER" sign does neither and does not meet the intent of the standard. Second, signs must come down when the hazard is gone. A wall of stale warnings trains crews to ignore all of them — which is why inspectors treat over-signing as seriously as under-signing.

A sign is also only as good as the condition behind it. Posting a wet-floor cone does not fix the leaking pipe, and a hard-hat-required sign does not put hard hats on heads. That is what the free scan below is for: photograph the area you are about to sign, and see which hazards are actually visible in it before deciding what the sign should say.