There’s an old saw in the safety world that says the rules are written in blood. It’s a grim reminder that most workplace safety regulations exist because someone, somewhere, was hurt or killed doing something that now has a rule against it.
Sometimes, though, we get a reminder that the blood continues to flow even when the rules already exist. We just have to follow them.
In March of last year, 45-year-old Sunbok You, the CEO of Hyundai subcontractor SBY America, was killed at the HL-GA Battery Company construction site in Bryan County, Georgia – part of the massive Hyundai Motor Group Metaplant America complex. He was speaking with some of his workers when he walked across a road on the site. A forklift struck him. The details of what happened next are graphic enough that I’ll spare you the worst of them, but suffice it to say that Mr. You was divided on the issue and did not survive.
The OSHA investigation that followed revealed the circumstances. The forklift operator was talking on his phone while driving. He wasn’t using a spotter, as required by site safety rules. He wasn’t following the traffic regulations that existed specifically to prevent this kind of tragedy. And after the incident? According to witness statements, he got off the forklift and ran away without checking on the man he’d just struck.
I’ll pause here to acknowledge what you may be thinking: Yes, Mr. You himself was apparently not wearing the required high-visibility green vest – he was wearing a black vest instead. He also had an eye patch on his right eye, which may have affected his peripheral vision. These are contributing factors worth noting.
As someone who recently underwent eye surgery for a macular pucker and spent time with compromised vision in one eye, I can tell you firsthand that depth perception and peripheral awareness take a genuine hit. I was acutely aware during that process of how much I relied on full binocular vision to navigate the world safely. I was extra cautious. I stayed out of situations where my impaired vision could put me – or anyone else – at risk.
So yes, Mr. You may have borne some responsibility for his own safety that day. Perhaps the eye patch should have made him even more vigilant. Perhaps the black vest was a lapse in judgment.
But here’s the thing – and it’s the thing that matters most: Even if Sunbok You had been dressed head to toe in fluorescent orange, with flashing lights and a marching band announcing his presence, the forklift driver may not have seen him. Because the forklift driver was looking at his phone.
This wasn’t an equipment failure. This wasn’t an unforeseeable accident. This wasn’t even a complicated scenario requiring sophisticated hazard analysis. This was a man on a phone operating heavy machinery in an area where other humans were present. It’s as preventable as tragedies get.
The fines that resulted are almost insulting in their inadequacy. Beyond Iron Construction, the forklift operator’s employer, was fined $16,550 for exposing employees to “struck-by and crushing hazards” and failing to ensure forklift operators followed traffic regulations. SBY America – Mr. You’s own company – was fined approximately $9,268. HL-GA Battery Company got a $1,800 fine for failing to submit required injury forms to OSHA.
For those keeping score at home, the total regulatory consequence for a man’s life was roughly $27,600. That’s less than the cost of the forklift that cut him in half. People know I am a conservative, generally pro-employer person who eschews excessive regulation, but that bias has its limits. And the safety record of this particular jobsite, which I will review in a moment, calls the fine adequacy into question.
But I digress… this article isn’t really about the inadequacy of OSHA penalties in this case, though that’s certainly a topic worthy of its own discussion. It’s about something more fundamental.
When we talk about workplace safety, we often frame it in terms of self-protection. Wear your hard hat so you don’t get hurt. Follow lockout/tagout procedures so you don’t get electrocuted. Use proper lifting technique so you don’t blow out your back. The messaging is almost entirely focused on the individual worker protecting themselves from harm.
And that’s important. It is. But it misses something crucial.
Workplace safety isn’t just about protecting yourself. It’s about protecting everyone around you. The forklift operator in Georgia wasn’t protecting himself by scrolling through his phone – he was endangering everyone in his vicinity. His momentary distraction became someone else’s permanent tragedy.
This is the part of safety culture that doesn’t get enough attention. Every worker on a job site is a potential hazard to every other worker on that job site. The scaffolding you didn’t secure properly could fall on someone else. The load you didn’t strap down correctly could shift and crush a coworker. The forklift you’re driving while checking your text messages could kill someone’s father, someone’s husband, someone’s friend.
The Hyundai megasite where Mr. You died has a troubling history. According to reports, there were 53 EMS calls to the site over a 16-month period, including over a dozen for traumatic injuries. There was another forklift accident. A worker caught in a conveyor belt. A pipe explosion. And Mr. You wasn’t even the only fatality – Victor Gamboa died in a 60-foot fall in 2023, and 27-year-old Allen Kowalski was killed when a metal frame fell on him in May 2025. OSHA has opened at least 15 investigations into incidents at this single site.
At some point, you have to ask: What is going on here? Is this a site where safety is genuinely prioritized, or is it a site where safety is treated as an inconvenient obstacle to production schedules?
I spend a lot of time in this space talking about workers’ compensation – how to improve the system, how to better serve injured workers, how to transform claims management into recovery management. But here’s a truth that should be obvious but apparently needs repeating:
The best workers’ compensation claim is the one that never gets filed.
Workers’ compensation exists because we accept that workplaces will never be perfectly safe, that injuries will occur, and that we need a system to address them when they do. That’s the grand bargain. But accepting that injuries will occur is not the same as accepting that they must occur at any particular rate, or that any particular injury was inevitable.
Sunbok You’s death was not inevitable. It was the predictable result of a worker ignoring basic safety protocols while operating dangerous equipment. It was preventable. It should have been prevented.
So the next time you’re tempted to skip a safety step because it’s inconvenient, or to check your phone while operating equipment, or to take a shortcut because you’re running behind schedule, remember this: You’re not just risking your own neck. You’re risking everyone else’s too.
The rules exist for a reason. They’re written in blood. Let’s stop adding to the ink supply.
Excellent article – thank you!