Wheeled Loading Shovel Fatalities

There have been nine fatal vehicle-pedestrian collisions involving wheeled loading shovels in the UK over the past four years.  Six in waste/recycling, the rest in wood chip.  Some were due to poor forward visibility, others resulted from reversing.  Larger capacity buckets had been fitted to some machines, further reducing forward visibility.

 

The UK regulatory authority has issued a safety notice is to remind dutyholders who use these machines of the need to fully assess and actively manage the risk of vehicle-pedestrian collisions.  We believe that this information is relevant to cargo operations internationally.

 

Please click here for the full Operational Alert

 

We are grateful to the Health and Safety Executive for providing details and to PSS and The Bristol Port Company for drawing it to our attention.  We acknowledge their commitment to sharing learning to benefit others.  If you have similar operations, please share this information with managers, operatives and any potentially affected third parties as appropriate.  Please also review any of your relevant operations for similar hazardous conditions, risks, and controls.

 

Learning content like this is highly valuable as it is based on real-world experience.  We encourage everyone with publishable information about incidents to send it to us, so that we can raise awareness across the whole industry.  Please contact us at secretariat@ichca.com; sharing your insight could save a life or prevent injury.