Reversing Lorry Threatens Health and Safety, Taking Worker’s Life
An engineering and a construction company have both been fined for safety issues. The fines total £250,000. An employee was killed because a lorry was reversing and struck him. The individual who died was 38 at the time of the incident. He was killed from behind in 2008 by the truck. The employee was on the phone standing near a busy motorway. He did not hear the lorry’s reverse signal due to the amount of noise.
The HSE went through health and safety audits to determine the exact cause of the incident and whether it could have been prevented. They found that Costain Limited failed to have adequate cover or precautions to separate people from moving vehicles. The court heard that the surveyor who died was leaving his parked vehicle and heading along the central reservation that was closed off for the project. He was speaking on the phone when the lorry with crushed stone reversed. The walk from the employee vehicle to where he was hit was 30 metres.
Had proper precautions been in place, the reversing lorry would not have been near the man walking to the project. It is a matter of workstation risk assessments meaning that planning for workers walking the path and vehicles moving needed to be accounted for and proper procedures put in place. This incident had devastating results that could have been avoided with better planning and risk assessments. The court hopes that in future other companies will take the time to be aware of the dangers.
