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Traffic Management Plan

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Safe and Unsafe Acts

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£1.2m fine after worker hit by wagon

Blindsided

An employee of CF Booth Ltd (B) was walking across the site yard in Rotherham when he was struck by a moving 32-tonne skip wagon in August 2020. The man sustained a fractured skull and fractured his collar bone in two places but has since made a full recovery.

Poor practices

The worker was not wearing his hi-vis jacket and did not see the wagon approaching. The wagon driver did not see the employee prior to the collision due to concentrating on manoeuvring the vehicle around some low-level skips which had been placed on the corner near where the employee was crossing the yard. The HSE found that the site was not organised in such a way that pedestrians and vehicles could circulate in a safe manner. A suitable and sufficient workplace transport risk assessment was not in place for the segregation of vehicles and pedestrians.

Paying the price

B pleaded guilty to breaching s.2 Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 . It was fined £1.2 million and ordered to pay costs of £5,694.85.

Assessing the risk

The incident could have been prevented by adequately assessing the risks and implementing appropriate control measures such as physical barriers and crossing points, all of which are reasonably practicable steps to avoid an injury. Tip. Use our template Traffic Management Plan to help you to decide how to manage the risk on your site (see The next step ). Amending this to suit your organisation and implementing control measures will not be a time-consuming or onerous task.

Steps for prevention

In this case poor placement of low-level skips on a corner obscured the driver’s view and meant that a pedestrian crossing-point became compromised. Tip. Your traffic management plan should identify whether there is potential for pedestrians and moving vehicles to collide. If this is the case cost- effective controls to reduce the likelihood of an incident occurring could include:

• installation of retractable barriers to prevent pedestrian entry whilst vehicles are operating
• installation of mirrors at critical points to increase visibility for both those on foot and drivers
• better placement of the skips. Tip. Once suitable areas are identified, mark the ground to establish a consistent reference point for their placement
• adding hatching to areas where lorries should not enter
• installation of suitable barriers bolted into the ground to create a segregated and safe walkway.

Behavioural element

A contributing factor to this incident was that the employee was walking in a hazardous area and not wearing suitable high visibility clothing. Tip.  Use our Safe and Unsafe Acts Form to regularly log employee behaviour. If unsafe acts are spotted, document safety discussions in your workplace and get everyone involved. Log and track if there are repeat issues and use this information to improve safety and reduce the chances of accidents occurring (see The next step ).

For our Traffic Management Plan and Safe and Unsafe Acts Form, visit https://www.tips-and-advice.co.uk , Download Zone, year 22 issue 18.