III FIGURES RELEASED EARLIER THIS MONTH by the Health and
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Safety Executive (HSE) make for grisly reading. A third more people died at work in 2000/01 than the year before, according to the provisional figures, with 295 deaths compared with 220 in 1999/00. The research also indicates that up to a third of all serious road traffic accidents involve someone who is driving as part of their job.
Because these accidents take place on the road, they are generally handled by the police. But this might be about to change with hauliers being required to report all serious road traffic accidents involving their vehides to the HSE.
It is no secret that safety in the workplace is a hot topic at the moment. Among the aims of the Health and Safety Executive's new workplace transport strategy, for example, are a to% reduction in the rate of fatal and major injury accidents by 2010, and a zo% drop in cases of workrelated ill heath.
Several high-profile transport accidents in the past few years have also served to rally public support for the introduction of corporate manslaughter legislation— and the government seems set to press ahead with a new corporate manslaughter charge that could be in place as soon as mid-2003.
HSE chairman Bill Callaghan explains the perceived need for more measures to prevent acd dents in the workplace. "The fact remains that most of these fatalities were preventable," he says. "Every work-related death is one too many. The primary responsibility for the health and safety of workers remains with employers."
But several question marks hang over the H SE's plans as far as they relate to haulage—one being whether the industry actually needs more safety legislation.
HSE figures relating specifically to safety in the haulage sector over 2000/I strongly suggest that the industry is actually bucking the wider workplace trend. In the year 1996/97, a total of 283 injuries or fatalities at work were recorded involving CVs. But comparable statistics relating to 2000/01 show a substantial faIl in workplace injuries and fatalities: down from 283 in 1996/97 to 213—a 25% drop.
Hauliers themselves are insistent that, while there is no cause for complacency, any further safety legislation in haulage is unnecessary, and could even be counter-productive. Pauline Edwards, managing director of Leicestershire-based Pauline Edwards Transport, says: "More legislation is definitely not needed. The small companies are being hit all the time, and there is already far too much red tape in this industry."
Haulier Paul Newton, of Horley Motors, adds that attention should be focused on other areas of the industry.
"Fuel tax and driver training are much more pressing issues to be dealt with", he says, "and we have to breathe some life into these areas before other things can be looked at.
"People in the industry are not complacent about Health and Safety, but focusing attention on areas such as better training will automatically lead to increased awareness of safety anyway. Any more red tape in the haulage industry is likely to kill it off completely."
If hauliers themselves are opposed to the introduction of any more legislation, other industry figures are more sanguine. A Freight Transport Association (FTA) spokesman says: "We are obviously very supportive of safety initiatives...at the same time we cannot have excessive legislation so it's all about getting the balance and taking the industry through what it needs to be prepared for."
Ian Rothera, of Nottinghambased solicitors Rothera Dowson, says that the HSE's intention to become more involved in workplace accidents has been anticipated by industry lawyers for some time. He also says that, while he is sympathetic to hauliers' cries of too much red tape, the industry must be prepared for the inevitable: "Red tape is a fact of life now in any industry or business, and these days, safety issues have absolute priority. There have to be systems in place to combat today's culture of blame."
So what kind of special risks are hauliers exposed to, and how much compensation can an acci dent victim expect to receive? Rothera identifies particular risk areas as driver tiredness and unloading and loading, together with incidents of vehides shedding their load.
This is reinforced by HSE workplace accident figures for 2000/01, which show that general loading and unloading duties carry the second highest risk with a total of 39 injuries and fatalities among HGV and light goods vehicles occurring in this year.
Heading the list as the most dangerous haulage activity among both light goods vehicles and HGVs is on-site transfer activity, with a total of 49 accidents occurring in the same year.
The exact amount of financial compensation that a victim might receive is harder to pin down because of the individual nature of each case. Guideline figures produced by the Judicial Studies Board for general damages suggest, for example, a sum of £140,000 to i-200,000 for a worker receiving very severe brain damage, or £120,000 to L150,000 for the amputation of both arms.
In reality, however, the final compensation is likely to be far higher because of special damage payments to cover the cost of extras such as loss of earnings or nursing.
Rothera says: "It is not difficult for an employee to put together a claim which runs into the hundred thousands for significant injury and loss of earnings, but claims are dealt with on a very individual basis. If a claim is made it is dealt with by the haulage company's relevant insurer."
Every industry benefits from close attention to safety matters, and haulage is clearly no exception. But with the UK's hauliers already struggling to cope with mounting red tape and litigation, it is difficult to anticipate industry support for the HSE's new proposals, especially as safety figures relating to haulage show a marked five-year improvement.
This aside, perhaps the industry has little choice but to accept that yet more legislation is practically inevitable, and hauliers must ensure they have systems in place to deal with today's culture of blame and accountability.