The Health and Safety Authority (HSA) has made vehicle safety in the workplace one of its top priorities in 2014. Accidents involving vehicles accounted for 20 fatalities investigated by the HSA in 2013.
While some of those accidents involved farming and construction sectors, unfortunately, fatalities in the Transportation and Storage sector have also risen sharply with 4 fatalities in 2013, up from 1 in 2012.
Quite apart from the real human tragedy such unnecessary death and injury causes, employers are legally obliged to exercise a duty of care in the workplace. Poor safety practice is not just a risk to life and limb but it's also a business risk.
Over the past decade, almost half the 600 deaths from workplace accidents investigated by the HSA have involved a vehicle. Workers, both drivers and pedestrian, are at risk both in the place of work and also while on the road. Vehicle manoeuvres and reversing are the activities most involved in workplace deaths involving vehicles.
In its recently published programme of work for 2014 the HSA has undertaken to increase their work programme to cover up to 520 scheduled inspections.
Along with checking compliance with legislation, the inspections and workplace visits are intended to raise awareness about workplace risk management.
As noted above, employers are duty bound to prevent avoidable harm at work. To assist in this obligation, the HSA has four new information sheets dealing with workplace Transport and Vehicle Related Hazards.
These publications are entitled:
- Delivering Safely
- Forklift Safety Tips
- Forklifts – Operator Pre-Checks
- Pedestrian Safety in the Workplace
These free information documents contain some simple steps that can be undertaken immediately to minimise risk to staff, the public and the business. The HSA have also developed a dedicated website focussed on transport safety at http://www.vehiclesatwork.ie/
The information sheets are downloadable from here and other handbooks, procedural guidelines and health and safety advice is freely available. Considering all that is at stake, it's definitely worth at least a quick look by anybody involved in the transport industry.
