Trust me I was one of the people who had no interest in buying steel toe safety shoes, I was so opposed that I thought I can make an attachment that can be attached to existing sports shoes, given I have access to plasma cutter at Vigyan Ashram.

Now my view has changed for Good after I Questioned the existence of the shoes, by empathising whether I should make regular shoe safety shoe cap attachment (Suggested by Prathemesh big bro). For starters I got to know an accident happened to a senor in Chaitanya big bro’s college, that person was working with an angle grinder in the workshop taking support of one of his knee and wearing sandals when angle grinder slipped from his hand while cutting metal sheet, it cut trough fifth toe of the right leg.

With the above story in mind, I became concerned. So I dropped the Idea about designing my own, why? well, I don’t want to be responsible for someone’s accident especially if it is caused directly or indirectly with the shoe attachment I may design, second- There is clear guidance & regulations from the Indian government on safety shoes- ( https://bis.gov.in/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/PM-IS-15298-2-cmd2.pdf ). Thirdly the shoes available in the market are well designed and with clean esthetics.. maybe due to manufacturer methods- moulding the toe cap. (I know my welding skill… poor).

So let’s begin with three types of safety shoes in the market-

  1. Steel-toe safety shoes
  2. PVC toe safety shoes
  3. Alloy toe safety shoes

Even though the materials are different and they do have work specifications, for a workshop environment all will work fine against an angle grinder, if you are here to know a specific workplace please consider an expert, I am just trying to motivate others like me.

Now back to the topic –

  1. The first difference between safety shoe and sports/casual shoes lies not only in presence of toe protector which, prevent your toe fingers from the compressive force due to accidents and hammer falls but also in the hardness of the sole (bottom part of the shoe). The bottom sole covers your entire bottom feet and has good thickness and hardness which prevent accidents related to nails and screws. Once again don’t expect these shoes will give you the Quechua shoes if you planned to use them for treks.
  2. The front, top, and side parts of the safety shoes are made up of leather and some internal foam. The external leather will prevent knife cut, or sheet metal cut accidents, This kind of safety will not be provided by day-to-day shoes especially the cloth or the trek shoes.
  3. Well, the biggest prevention here is toe finger safety but, also your money. If you are like me a rough user and decided to buy decathlon shoes for your daily/weekly activities (running, trekking, cycling, etc) and you wore those shoes it that uncertain day with the potential for hurting your feet, even if those shoes prevented accidents from blades or nails but now you have a pair of shoes with a dent on it which can be compressed sole to wide cut in shoe quarter, making the pair useless (my Quechua trek shoes cost me more than 2000 INR), whereas a safety shoe in the market in 2021 with PVC toe cost starts from 500 INR. So you will save and invest in your life by buying safety shoes, Don’t worry, for 2-3 days per week of work in the workshop it will last more than 2yrs.

With this, my thoughts on this topic ends here, meet you at my next post.

Feel free to comment on my mistakes, it will make it easier for me to correct them and learn from readers.

Thanks for reading Suraj K.