Loading accident lands courier company in court
Feb 24, 2010
A worldwide courier company has been fined £35,000 and has been ordered to pay £5134 in costs after failing to adequately assess the dangers associated with vehicle movements following several accidents at its distribution centre.
Delivery lorries at the distribution centre were reverse-parked in loading bays, which were connected to the sorting centre by manual ramps. An employee was loading parcels into the back of a 7.5 tonne lorry, when the driver unexpectedly returned to the vehicle and pulled away from the loading dock. The employee fell four feet from the rear of the vehicle on to the concrete floor and fractured his right leg. He was unable to return to work for more than six months.
This was not an isolated incident, as another worker at the depot had suffered crush injuries whilst loading a forklift, almost a year earlier. A month before the employee in question was injured, the HSE issued an Improvement Notice which required the company to review vehicle movements at the site. There were also two other incidents at the distribution centre which were almost identical to the one involving the employee in question.
The company was aware that someone could be inside the back of a vehicle when it drove off, and had produced a risk assessment to be issued to new drivers with their employment contracts. However, in this case, the driver had not received a contract and had not seen the risk assessment.
Other reasonable, practical measures should have been in place and could have prevented the incidents. These could have included a simple control system to prevent the driver from pulling away from the loading bay, such as a key cabinet with restricted access, or giving the keys to the porter until loading was complete.
