Driver’s death prompts lorry loading safety call
Legislation update
<< Back to contents page
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has reminded employers that they must ensure the safety of drivers who load and unload goods following the death of an HGV driver...
Nigel Sargeant (46), of Boston fell 15 feet from his trailer and suffered fatal head injuries. As a result, Saint Gobain Building Distribution Ltd was fined a total of £120,000 and ordered to pay £51,000 costs by Lincoln Crown Court after being found guilty of breaching health and safety law.
Every year, 2,000 workers are seriously injured after falling from their vehicles and last year four workers lost their lives after falls. The HSE is running a ‘Falls from Vehicles’ campaign designed to crack down on the number of incidents. Further information is available at www.hse.gov.uk/fallsfromvehicles (pictured)
Under the 1974 Health and Safety at Work Act and the 1999 Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations, employers have a duty of care to to ensure, ‘so far as is reasonably practicable, the health, safety and welfare at work of all employees’.
In the recent court case, Boston-based Calders and Grandidge Limited, part of Saint Gobain, which manufactures and supplies wooden telegraph poles decided to supply metal poles as a new product line.
Three years ago, the day before the first full load of poles was to be dispatched, Mr Sargeant was concerned about the height of a load and climbed onto a vehicle to attempt to lower it. While doing so, he fell approximately 15 feet and suffered fatal head injuries.
HSE inspector Jo Anderson said: “It is vital that those who work in the transport industry take this issue seriously. This incident highlights the need for employers to recognise the risk of drivers falling when loading and unloading vehicles. They need to put measures in place to prevent this sort of incident from happening again. Had the correct measures been in place Mr Sargeant may not have died.
“Companies must have procedures in place to identify new or changed products and the impact that their introduction will have on existing systems and procedures. In this case, there was no procedure in place and therefore no risk assessment was undertaken for the loading of metal poles, despite it being recognised as a problem, as workers were finding it difficult to load the metal poles with the equipment provided which was suitable for timber poles.”