Worker Fatally Crushed At Plant Hire Company

A 39-year-old worker has died after being crushed between two vehicles as he was refuelling his road sweeper in the yard of Leedale Limited, a waste management and plant hire company in Derbyshire.

An investigation into Matthew Lambert’s death in November 2013 by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) found that there were no identified or marked vehicle or pedestrian routes, as well as no rules governing reversing manoeuvres. Furthermore, the lighting on site was poor and below the required standard.

As a result of the accident, which occurred when a tipper lorry reversed into Mr Lambert, Leedale Limited was fined £300,000 and ordered to pay £50,737 in costs.

National regulator for workplace health and safety in Britain, the HSE aims to reduce work-related ill health, injury and death through research, information and advice, new codes of practice, promoting training and working with councils through inspection and enforcement.

It’s a sad fact of life that accidents can and will happen, especially on industrial sites where heavy machinery is used as a matter of course. However, there are ways in which you can mitigate the risks posed to your members of staff and one of the best ways of doing so is by ensuring your workers wear the appropriate high visibility clothing.

The Personal Protective Equipment at Work Regulations 1992 Act requires companies to take into account various factors to make sure the correct clothing is worn for particular tasks. In order to be effective, high-vis clothes must be of a colour that will allow whoever’s wearing them to stand out against the ambient background. In practice, this means that the best colour is typically fluorescent yellow.