THE safe loading of vehicles and load security is too often dismissed as a box that needs to be ticked. That is, until something goes wrong and people are injured or killed.
An example of this happened last year when a driver and passenger were lucky to escape with minor injuries when a lorry shed its load of concrete slabs onto a Tesla as it rounded a corner (pictured above).
Many of the issues around safe loading and load security are due to misunderstanding rather than malicious malpractice, according to Nina Day, a chartered mechanical engineer and a dangerous goods safety advisor specialising in road and workplace transport. She has worked for the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) for 21 years.
Her view is that the fundamental problem where an incident has happened – usually a fatality or a serious injury – is a lack of risk assessment, or the fact that the risk assessment is so inadequate it may as well not have existed.
That’s something I’ve seen in the vast majority in load shift incidents I’ve worked on in the past 15 years,” says Day. “There are a lot of misconceptions on risk assessments – but it doesn’t have to be bureaucratic and time consuming. It’s just thinking through what you do, what could go wrong and what how to stop someone getting hurt if it does go wrong.
If you haven’t thought things through, the chances of everything else being right are actually quite low. All the other issues we see follow on from not having the risk assessment right. It’s also a legal requirement so if you’re an employer or self-employed, you do need to have a risk assessment.”
Driving for Better Business has published a podcast in which Day talks through some of the issues around safe loading and load security for the latest episode in the Driving for Better Business Podcast series.
As part of the Let’s talk Fleet Risk podcast series is now available, along with previous episodes which offer insights and advice to help fleet managers operate more safely and efficiently.
The 30-minute episode includes advice on how to check if your risk assessment process is fit for purpose. It examines why operators and drivers don’t always understand their responsibilities, and also where the culpability lies in the eyes of the police and the HSE. It asks if everyone in the supply chain for an operation is clear on the role they play and questions the sort of risk assessments used by businesses as part of their driving for work and load security policy.
The Driving for Better Business website library includes a section on load security resources, with a range of videos and guides that fleet managers can share with their drivers. It’s an area where everyone who is involved in the transport chain bears responsibility so it’s key that those businesses that move goods around the road network are clear on how to ensure the process is as safe as it can be.
Driving for Better Business is a government-backed National Highways programme to help employers in both the private and public sectors reduce work-related road risk, control the associated costs and improve compliance with current legislation and guidance.
See the free guidance on the HSE website.
Image courtesy of BBC News
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