Driving down accidents

As one of the biggest causes of accidents in the workplace, the hazards and risks associated with transport are an essential component of any organisations accident prevention strategy which needs to be clearly communicated to workers.

With thousands of people left seriously injured every year, after being knocked down, falling off, or even crushed against fixed parts by vehicles, such as HGVs, lift trucks and tractors, it is essential for companies to consider workplace transport in order to improve the safety of the people, vehicle movements and operations not only across their sites but when they are using the public highway.

Consider a recent case in which Glasgow City Council was fined £20,000 after a pensioner was killed by a bin lorry driven by a worker who was not fully trained. 

The pensioner was hit by the reversing vehicle in Glasgow city centre in August 2012, and the authority admitted health and safety breaches, after it emerged that workers in charge of the lorry had not received adequate training. 

An investigation by a health and safety inspector found there was a blind spot for the driver, but that if a reversing assistant had been used, it would have prevented the incident.

Glasgow Sheriff Court was told that risk assessments by the council in place at the time of the accident recorded that “reversing assistant training was to be completed by all refuse collectors by August 2011”, but a year after the deadline, neither the agency worker driving the bin lorry or the council employee accompanying him had received relevant training about reversing. 

Glasgow City Council pleaded guilty to breaching health and safety legislation by failing to ensure all employees using the refuse collection vehicles had received adequate training and as a result the accident happened, which caused Mr Malcolm’s death. Since the accident, all council employees – including agency workers – are now trained and records of training are kept up-to-date. 

It cannot be stressed enough how important it is to have a risk assessment in place, which considers all workplace transport activities, in order to prevent such tragedies.

Things that can help with this are looking carefully at all the vehicles and people moving around your workplace, and studying where pedestrians and vehicles interact by marking the traffic and pedestrian movements on a plan.

Organisations can also identify improvements that will reduce the contact between pedestrians and vehicles, as well as including less frequent tasks, such as waste skip changes. It is also important to consider delivery drivers, as they are particularly vulnerable to workplace transport accidents.

Accidents involving vehicles in the workplace cause many lives to be tragically changed or cut short each year. Thousands of working days are also lost. But careful consideration of ways in which to segregate pedestrians from vehicles throughout the workplace is the key to reducing accidents.

 

• Safe site – making sure your workplace and traffic routes are safe for the people and vehicles using them
• Safe vehicle – ensuring all vehicles used are suitable
• Safe driver – drivers should be competent to operate a vehicle safely and receive appropriate information, instruction and training for the vehicle they use.

RoSPA is regularly called upon to assist organisations concerned with effectively managing workplace transport and it offers an independent workplace transport risk assessment review service.  For more information see: www.rospa.com/consultancy/riskassessments/onsite-workplace-transport.aspx.