Safety offences on web site of shame
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• Hauliers convicted of health and safety crimes have been named and shamed in a project designed to deter others from committing breaches.
The report by the Health and Safety Executive lists around 1,600 offences in total and includes several high-profile hauliers.
The HSE has also made full details of each conviction available on a web site: www.hsedatabases.co.uk/prosecutionst.
Transport and haulage firms listed in the report include Newport-based Tufnells Parcels Express, where a driver was fatally injured in 1997 while attempting to couple a trailer and tractor; Glasgow-based GeoLogistics, where an employee was injured by a forklift truck in 1998 while loading a trailer; and Manchester-based Maxi Haulage, where an employee was killed last year while repairing a vehicle defect during an annual test.
All the companies now claim to have improved their safety procedures, and Steve Crawford of Maxi Haulage believes the report is unfair. "We are a very professional organisation and we will now be tarred with the same brush as some far less reputable firms," he says.
HSE director-general Timothy Walker says: "I want this report to create pressure on those who have failed in their responsibilities towards workers and the general public."
Walker is also backing calls for tougher new penalties including prison sentences and the introduction of the proposed corporate killing legislation.
• See feature, page 44.