“Simple and inexpensive” measures would have prevented lift-truck incident
Oct 25, 2011
A Lincolnshire farming company has been fined after an agricultural worker was hit by a forklift truck at a farm where pedestrians and vehicles were inadequately segregated.
The worker fractured his left leg in the incident at the company’s premises near Spalding, Lincolnshire.
Local magistrates heard that the worker had been walking across the floor of a potato-grading shed to retrieve some box labels that were kept in a desk at the side of the shed, when he crossed the path of the truck as it was reversing.
The shed was fairly confined, with trucks moving backwards and forwards all the time. People and moving vehicles were just too close together and without proper segregation.
Since the incident the company has put up a barrier and has moved the labels to another part of the shed next to the grading line so that people do not have to walk across the shed. This shows how simple and inexpensive preventative measures can be.
The company pleaded guilty to breaching reg.4 (1) of the Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992 by not organising the separation of vehicles and pedestrians in the shed so they could circulate safely, and was fined £7000 and ordered to pay £2588 full costs.
