Risk news

Employers have been reminded of their legal responsibility to ensure that their staff are able to work safely in areas where vehicles are manoeuvring.

Health and Safety Executive inspector Karl Howes issued the guidance following an incident in which a Royal Mail employee was crushed to death by a reversing heavy goods vehicle (HGV) at the Heathrow Worldwide Distribution Centre.

Colin Smith, a 57-year-old worker at the facility, was fatally injured when one of Royal Mail's HGV drivers was attempting to line his tractor up with a trailer unit.

The operator completed the manoeuvre and exited that vehicle in order to connect the units together, only to find that Mr Smith had been caught between the two.

He had been attempting to remove a lock from the trailer at the time, Reading Crown Court was told.

In 2008-09, 25 people were killed in the workplace after being hit by vehicles.

Royal Mail Group Ltd, which is based at 148 Old Street in London, was fined £90,000 and ordered to pay £42,549.56 in costs after pleading guilty to breaching section two of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974.

Mr Howes described the incident as "tragic" and said that it could have been "easily prevented" had the company exercised proper control of vehicle activities at the centre.

He said: "The company failed to adequately assess the risk to shunters working in the yard or to identify and rectify the unsafe system and this contributed to Mr Smith's death."

Responding to the event, Andrew Couch, consultant manager at Aviva Risk Management Solutions, says: "The dangers of vehicles manoeuvring around sites have been recognised for many years as a major cause of accidental deaths at work. Just because the Road Traffic Acts don't apply, many organisations seem to think that there are no road safety laws on site, but they are very wrong.

"The Workplace (health, safety and welfare) Regulations make it clear that internal transport risks must be controlled in much the same way as on the public highway. Reversing vehicles are particularly hazardous and clear systems of work must be established and rigidly enforced."

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