Recycling company, Savanna Rags International Limited, has been fined £650,000 after pleading guilty to breaching various health and safety in the workplace regulations which led to a worker being fatally injured after she was struck by a reversing delivery vehicle.
Following the accident on 26 April 2016, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) carried out an investigation and found that there were no measures in place to appropriately segregate pedestrians from moving vehicles. There was no workplace best practice to ensure that reversing was minimised so that vehicles could manoeuvre safely.
Following the hearing, an HSE inspector commented
This was a tragic and wholly avoidable incident caused by the failure of the company to undertake a suitable and sufficient risk assessment of the risks arising from the movement of vehicles and implement safe systems of work. This meant the company failed to put in place a number of simple safety measures including segregating vehicles and pedestrians and reducing the need for vehicles to reverse.
…HSE is currently in the [process] of targeting waste and recycling premises with an inspection initiative that will look at certain activities to ensure effective management and control of risk.
Employees being struck by moving vehicles remain the most common type of fatal accidents at work; 31 people were killed during 2016/2017 from this type of incident. The waste disposal industry is one of the most prolific for fatal workplace accidents and employers in this sector should be aware of the risks and ensure they have strict policies in place to mitigate accidents from happening.
