The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has this month warned employers to make sure that they have suitable controls in place to prevent people being struck by moving vehicles. This follows the prosecution of a Coventry scrap and recycling business after a worker was killed.
Easco (Midlands) Limited was fined £200,000 and ordered to pay £55,000 costs at Coventry Crown Court, on Monday 5 February 2008, after pleading guilty to breaching the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974. The prosecution relates to an incident on 14 June 2005, where an employee working as a burner at the company's site in Ibstock Road, Longford was killed when he was struck by a reversing skip lorry.
Speaking after the case, HSE Inspector Jenny Skeldon said, "Scrapyard owners need to ensure that they carry out a suitable and sufficient risk assessment of the movement of vehicles and pedestrians on site and identify and implement appropriate control measures to prevent people being struck by moving vehicles. In this case, there were inadequate precautions in place to segregate pedestrians from vehicles, despite previous warnings from the HSE at other sites within the Easco group."
HSE statistics highlight transport as the second biggest cause of work-related deaths, after falls from height. Every year around 70 people are killed in such accidents in the workplace.
