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May/June 2023 issue

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Workplace transport
Sector: Local government
Transport and logistics
News

Council fined £1m after poorly trained worker ran over disabled OAP

Open-access content Wednesday 26th April 2017
From the archive:  Just so you know, this article is more than 3 years old.

The 71-year-old man sustained serious bruising and injuries to his arms, legs and head.

Nottingham Crown Court was told that the employee was operating a tractor fitted with a mounted grab attachment to collect branches for burning.

The disabled man was on a guided walk in the park. The council worker did not see him and ran into him.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) found the council had not given its workers sufficient training to safely operate mounted grabs or act as banksmen. It had put its own staff and the public at risk by failing to segregate vehicles and pedestrians, and not adequately planning or supervising the work.

The HSE also said the tractor was unsuitable for transporting the branches long distances.

Nottinghamshire County Council pleaded guilty to breaching ss 2(1) and 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work Act and must pay £10,270 costs.

HSE inspector Martin Giles said after the hearing that the council's failings had endangered other members of the public walking with the OAP.

Anthony May, chief executive of Nottinghamshire County Council, said: "We know things went very wrong on the day and that we failed in our duty of care. For that reason, we have worked hard to improve health and safety arrangements at Rufford Abbey, and across the council.

"We acted immediately after the incident by having our own internal investigation, as we wanted to find out what had happened and what had gone wrong. We cooperated fully with [HSE's] investigation, sharing evidence, findings and witness statements from our own investigation. When the HSE brought charges against the council, we did not at any stage contest them.

"While it is of course highly regrettable that this happened in the first place, we have contingency funding to be able to meet this size of fine. When setting and planning our budget we always allow for whole range of risks.

"We have taken action to review and improve the way we do things to make things safer, as we want to reassure people that Rufford Abbey is a safe environment for everyone.

"Since June 2015, we have improved driver training, updated and improved our risk assessments for vehicle use, reviewed and improved our arrangements for managing vehicle movement in the park, improved our public information at the park about vehicle movement, and improved our arrangements for the supervision of employees.

"In light of this incident, we have also taken the opportunity to renew our health and safety focus across the whole council to further make sure that all our public services operate in the safest way they can."

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REX/Shutterstock

 Croydon tram drivers admit falling asleep

Monday 24th April 2017
The device, which is a common feature on trams across the UK and Europe, is designed to activate when the driver fails to maintain pressure on the lever that increases the tram’s speed. To pick up speed, drivers have to apply 0.68 kg of pressure on the lever. If the pressure is not maintained, an alarm should sound and an emergency brake be applied.
Open-access content
©Tim Scrivener/REX/Shutterstock

 DHL auditor crushed by 770 kg equipment load at JCB HQ

Monday 8th May 2017
An electric tug was towing the trolley through the yard at JCB’s headquarters in Rochester, Staffordshire on 16 October 2013. At the same time, a DHL employee was auditing incoming deliveries nearby.Stafford Crown Court was told that the trolley fell on its side and struck the worker, pinning him to a stillage. He sustained fractures and internal injuries.  The Health and Safety Executive’s (HSE) investigation found there was no system to segregate vehicles operating the warehouse from both DHL and JCB workers who were on foot.
Open-access content
A forklift truck similar to that involved in the incident.

 Timber merchant fined £120k over forklift truck hand-crush injuries

Friday 31st March 2017
An investigation by Chichester District Council’s environmental health team found that lorry driver Robert Gassor was delivering timber to Covers Builders Merchants when the incident happened on 18 March 2016.When Gassor arrived at Covers’ site on Quarry Lane, the timber on his vehicle was unloaded by a forklift truck operated by a David Cover and Son (Covers) employee. The timber was on top of a series of steel metal posts acting as bearers.
Open-access content
HSE

 *UPDATE* Laing O’Rourke lands £800k fine over Heathrow Airport fatality

Thursday 30th March 2017
The company failed to ensure that the workers had a permit to use the vehicle and did not properly oversee and manage the operation.The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) investigation found that siblings Paul and Philip Griffiths were nearing the end of their shift in the early hours of 2 October 2014 when the accident happened at the site of a new multi-storey car park at Heathrow’s Terminal 2.
Open-access content
© Cultura/REX/Shutterstock

 European workers are losing influence on OSH management

Tuesday 11th April 2017
At the same time, the research identifies an increase in the use of management systems approaches to OSH as managers or specialists take on responsibility for safety and health management.The qualitative study builds on EU-OSHA’s second European Survey of Enterprises on New and Emerging Risks (ESENER-2).
Open-access content
The sequence trolley tipped on to a worker in the north yard

 *UPDATE* DHL auditor crushed by 770 kg load at JCB HQ

Thursday 18th May 2017
Under a service agreement with DHL, the logistics giant audited incoming deliveries to JCB’s headquarters in Rocester, Staffordshire, before the components were sent to the factory’s vehicle assembly line.On 16 October 2013, a DHL teletruck operator unloaded two stillages of gearboxes from a curtain-sided container truck on the north yard so they could be audited by his colleague, Michael Addison.
Open-access content
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Sector: Local government
Transport and logistics
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