RISK ASSESSMENT - 28.06.2022

What caused fatality at seafood company?

A worker was run over and killed by a fork-lift truck at a seafood processing facility. How did this happen and could it have been prevented? What measures should you implement to avoid such tragedies?

What happened?

The pedestrian worker suffered significant leg injuries following a vehicular collision at a seafood processing company and subsequently died from her injuries.

In court

QA Fish Ltd (Q) from Shetland pleaded guilty to breaching s.2.1 and s.33.1a Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 and was fined £80,000.

What went wrong?

The investigation found that no site-specific workplace transport risk assessment had been carried out. The use of the fork-lift truck was essential to complete the activities but the company failed to provide controls to ensure that pedestrians and vehicles could circulate in a safe manner, particularly with regards to the fork-lift truck. Q had failed to implement effective arrangements and to act on the advice of a health and safety consultant several years prior to the incident.

Site-specific risk assessment

As a dutyholder you must ensure that vehicle and pedestrian movements at your site are properly assessed and adequately controlled. As every workplace is different a generic risk assessment is simply not good enough to cover the site-specific risks, e.g. you may have a blind corner or slopes at your premises whereas another site won’t which indicates a higher risk for you than for them. Tip. Don’t forget to review and update your site-specific risk assessment as necessary.

Reasonably practicable controls

Once you have assessed the risks on your site, you then need to apply reasonably practicable control measures. These do not necessarily need to be costly and many can be quick to implement such as installing mirrors to help with vision on corners, having marked walkways and zebra crossings at critical areas, e.g. by staff entrances (see The next step ) and if funds stretch to it, permanent physical barriers installed to protect pedestrians from moving vehicles (see The next step ). Signage is a good control, but make sure that it is positioned correctly and that your staff don’t become “sign blind”. If you see any workers not sticking to the rules don’t ignore it. Whilst it might not be a disciplinary offence, talking to them and highlighting what could go wrong may be sufficient to make them think twice about walking near a moving vehicle. Tip. Avoid the use of temporary barriers as these won’t offer protection to a pedestrian against a moving fork-lift truck as they will be moved by the impact and may even increase injuries sustained.

Good behaviour

It’s not just engineering controls that you can implement. If you still have a high risk then it is important to train your staff as to the risk and what could go wrong if they do not stick to the rules you have set out. You should make it clear to all staff what the hazards are, what controls you have in place, what residual risk remains and that you are relying on them to exhibit good safe behaviour and be aware of their surroundings at all times. Tip. Don’t just rely on high visibility clothing as a control as in many cases a driver still won’t be able to see a pedestrian if they are in their blind spot.

For a selection of barriers and zebra crossings, visit https://www.tips-and-advice.co.uk , Download Zone, year 20, issue 20.

Failure to undertake a risk assessment and implement suitable controls led to the fatality. Make sure you have site-specific assessments in place and use controls such as barriers to segregate workers from moving vehicles.

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