A recent Health and Safety Executive (HSE) report highlighted a facilities services company that was fined £30,000 and had to pay costs of £7636 after pleading guilty. The incident involved an employee who was carrying out inspections of drain covers adjacent to a workshop. The forklift truck operator was unloading boxes for delivery to the canteen. The forklift operator’s view was obscured by the load on the forks. This resulted in the accident with the employee inspecting the drain covers. He suffered a broken leg.
The company had transgressed under the following sections of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974:
- Section 2(1) – Duty of employer to ensure health, safety and welfare at work of all employees
- Section 3(1) – Duty of every employer to ensure that persons not in his employment who may be affected are not exposed to risks to their health or safety
The HSE’s investigation found the company had failed to carry out the appropriate risk assessment. It failed to ensure vehicles and pedestrians were not working at the same time in the same place.
In another recent accident, a forklift truck crashed into a refuse skip, seriously injuring two employees. In UK, about 1300 workers are injured and hospitalised every year due to forklift truck accidents with 42% of fatalities caused by vehicles tipping over (read our blog on Loading Capacity of a Forklift Truck for advice on how to prevent forklift truck from tipping over)
The training of the forklift operators and all the safety processes are the responsibility of the employer. The HSE’s Code of Practice for Forklift Trucks – L117, states that adequate operator training consists of three stages – Basic, Specific and Familiarisation. It is best to get the forklift training from an accredited organisation. Wallace Forklift Training is RTITB accredited. We have a dedicated facility for forklift training in Park Royal in London and we can also carry out training at your site. Our customers mainly come from individuals who want to improve their job prospects or from companies who sent their employees for training and refresher courses.
Wallace School of Transport is a fully accredited RTITB company with over 50 years’ experience. You can be trained either at your own work site or at Wallace Centre in Park Royal. If you have any questions, call Wallace Forklift Training on 020 8453 3440, choose option 3 or click here to email us.