Trailer warning
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F°flowing an accident investigation I was involved in recently, I felt that attention needed drawing to the issue of possible instability of semi-trailers while being loaded/unloaded.
The accident in question involved a trailer which tipped over while being loaded. The trailer was being loaded from the front by a person on an order picker when the accident occurred. At the time that the trailer tipped over a load of approximately five tonnes had been loaded beyond the landing legs.
It is my opinion that the load at the front of the trailer caused the legs to act as a fulcrum and thus the trailer tipped over.
From information gathered during the investigation, I made the following conclusions: • Trailers tipping over are not an uncommon occurrence in the industry;
• The majority of healthand-safety guidance relating to trailer stability while being loaded/unloaded and the general opinion in the industry is that the duty to ensure the trailer is stable rests with the user, providing the manufacturer/supplier ensures the trailer is well maintained and issues corred information on safe use;
• The usual method of ensuring trailers are stable while being loaded is the use of trestles or support jacks. However, these do not seem to be widely used throughout the industry.
I feel that this issue needs to be more widely publicised and trailer users and suppliers should be made more aware of the dangers of trailers tipping over, ER Pinder, Wakefield Metropolitan District Council