Haulier fined after driver falls from tipper
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LONDON WASTE haulier Quick Skips and Recycling has been fined £20,000 after a driver on his first day on the job sustained life-threatening injuries when he fell from the top of a tipper truck.
In a Health and Safety Executive (HSE) prosecution, Westminster Magistrates’ Court was told how the 40-year-old, who does not wish to be named, had joined Ealing-based Quick Skips and Recycling in March 2010 and was collecting waste from the Acton facility of Bridgemarts, trading as Gowing & Pursey, for transfer to another site. After loading the lorry he stopped and climbed on top of the tipper unit to check an auto-sheeting device, used to cover the load, that had become jammed.
The man manually freed the jam, but the sheet system sprung back, struck him and sent him crashing more than three metres to the ground.
He broke two ribs, punctured a lung, developed a blood clot in his head and was unconscious in hospital for two weeks.
Quick Skips pleaded guilty to single breaches of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974, the Work at Height Regulations 2005 and the Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992.
Bridgemarts was earlier fined £7,000 after pleading guilty to breaching Regulation 5 of the Work at Height Regulations 2005 on 11 July.
Effective safety procedure
Effective controls must be put in place to stop employees clambering on top of trucks without the right safety equipment and agreed safe working protocols.