Vehicle-related deaths and injuries are preventable if employers take the right steps to assess the risks and implement the right control measures, says Dr Karen McDonnell, Head of Global Relations at the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA).
In April, an Oldham-based haulage company was fined £86,710 after forklift truck driver Ian Dawson was killed when the HGV he was loading moved forward causing the FLT to overturn, trapping Mr Dawson underneath it. He died as a result of his injuries in 2020.
HSE said the company had failed to put sufficient safe systems of work in place regarding vehicle movements and had not taken steps to ensure all FLT drivers wore seatbelts. The court heard that if Mr Dawson had been wearing a seatbelt it is highly likely that this would have saved his life.
In May, a metals recycling company was fined £1.2m after a worker’s skull was fractured when he was hit by a 32-tonne skip wagon as he walked across the firm’s yard. Neither the man nor the driver saw each other before the collision. The driver had been focusing on manoeuvring his vehicle around some low-level skips which had been placed on a corner near to where the employee was walking.
The court was told the firm had failed to take steps to assess the risks posed by the movement of vehicles and pedestrians at the site.
These are just two tragic examples of what can go wrong when workplace transport risks are not taken seriously. There are many more.
Workplace transport covers any activity involving vehicles used in a workplace. This includes moving goods or people within the workplace; loading, unloading and securing loads; sheeting; coupling; and vehicle maintenance work.
Vehicles using public roads are not usually classed as ‘workplace transport’ because they are covered by road traffic legislation. However, when public roads are used as ‘temporary workplaces’ for example during roadside deliveries, road works or breakdown assistance, health and safety law applies as it does to other workplace transport activities. During these times, employers and drivers have to consider the extra risks their activities may cause to other road users and pedestrians.
On average, each year in Great Britain, HSE says there are around 50 worker deaths and more than 5,000 injuries because of workplace transport activities. The most common causes are people falling from or being struck by a vehicle, objects falling from a vehicle, or vehicles overturning. In the five years from April 2018 to March 2023, 122 workers died after being struck by a moving vehicle at work and over 7,000 sustained non-fatal RIDDOR-reportable injuries.
These deaths and injuries are preventable if employers take the right steps to assess the risks from workplace transport and implement the right control measures.
Causes and measures to take
Credit: Elevate/Unsplash
Most workplace transport-related deaths and injuries are a result of poor segregation of vehicles and pedestrians, inadequate driver training, poor visibility from a vehicle, lack of vehicle maintenance, working on unsafe slopes and surfaces, and poor lighting. To manage these risks effectively, there are three key areas employers need to consider when carrying out a risk assessment:
- Safe site (design and activity) including:
- planning your workplace so pedestrians are safe from vehicles
- providing a one-way system if you can
- providing separate routes for pedestrians and vehicles where possible
- avoiding reversing where possible
- providing appropriate crossing points where pedestrians and traffic meet
- using ‘Highway Code’ signs to indicate vehicle routes, speed limits, pedestrian crossings etc
- making sure lighting is adequate where people and vehicles are working
- keeping road surfaces firm and even
- making sure there are safe areas for loading and unloading
- providing separate car parking for visitors as they may not know your site.
- Safe vehicle including:
- ensuring vehicles are suitable for the purpose for which they are used
- maintaining vehicles in good repair, particularly the braking system, steering, tyres, lights, mirrors and specific safety systems
- removing the need for people to climb up on vehicles where possible, e.g. by providing gauges and controls that are accessible from ground level
- reducing the risk of falling when people have to climb onto a vehicle or trailer by providing well-constructed ladders, non-slip walkways and guard rails where possible
- providing reversing aids such as CCTV where appropriate
- fitting rollover protective structures and ensuring seatbelts are used where fitted
- checking that vehicles are inspected daily.
- Safe driver including:
- checking that drivers are fit to drive
- ensuring drivers are properly trained
- ensuring drivers carry out daily vehicle checks
- ensuring drivers know how to safely enter and exit the vehicle
- ensuring visiting drivers understand what they have to do to stay safe working on the site.
Training and guidance
HSE has produced some free checklists to guide employers through reducing the risks from workplace transport activities. It has also put together some useful ‘before-and-after’ case studies (based on real cases) to help start conversations about workplace transport issues with managers and staff.
Looking through the list of recent health and safety prosecutions due to workplace transport failures, one detail that stood out is that many of the workers killed and injured were young or had little experience in the workplace.
In one case, a 22-year-old site engineer, who had only worked for his employer for a few months, was struck and run over by an excavator as he attached ‘warning’ signs to fencing around the work site.
In another, a 26-year-old sustained four rib fractures when five hay bales, each weighing 600kg, fell on top of him as he loaded them for deliveries. And on the recent The Scottish Occupational Road Safety Alliance (ScORSA) Road Safety Webinar, Jane Gurney MBE spoke about the death of her 19-year-old son Harry who died when the tractor he was driving hit a bridge after the brakes on the trailer he was pulling failed. He had only been working for his employer for three weeks. HSE said the brakes had not been correctly adjusted, rendering them ineffective.
Since Harry’s death, Jane has worked tirelessly to improve the safety of farm vehicles across the country through the Tilly Pass vehicle inspection initiative she established in Harry’s memory.
Farm tractors and trailers and other types of workplace transport often use public roads when travelling short distances between fields or for longer distances when making deliveries, so Jane’s campaign is not just making workplace transport activities safer for those working on farms, it really is making the roads safer for all road users.
RoSPA is responsible for the delivery of the Scottish Occupational Road Safety Alliance (ScORSA), an initiative relating to those who drive or ride for work. Membership is free and is open to individuals and organisations worldwide.
This eBook will guide you through some of the key understandings you need to be able to manage driver safety effectively and, at the end, provide a series of free resources you can access to help you ensure your own driver safety management system is robust, legally compliant and in line with industry-accepted good practice.
Download this eBook from Driving for Better Business and SHP to cover:
- Why do we need to manage driver safety?
- Duty of care – a shared responsibility;
- Setting the rules with a driving for work policy;
- Managing driver safety;
- Ensuring safe vehicles;
- Safe journeys and fitness to drive;
- Record keeping;
- Reporting;
- The business benefits of good practice;
- Additional resources
Training and guidance 