A farm has been fined £60,000 following the death of a 43-year-old father-of-three who was electrocuted on the 13th May 2021 by a power line. Patrick Rice was unloading stone when the hydraulic arm of the dumper truck came into contact with 11kV overhead power lines at VB Farms LLP's in Devon. A Health and Safety Executive (HSE) investigation into the incident found VB Farms LLP failed to carry out an assessment of how the work could be completed safely and did not consider the dangers involved with working near an overhead power line. Accidental contact with live overhead power lines kill and cause many serious injuries every year, additionally getting too close to an overhead..

There were one hundred and thirty-five workers killed due to work-related incidents in the United Kingdom the last year, according to figures published by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) on the 6th of July 2023. The statistics released covers the period between April 2022 and March 2023 and shows an increase of fatalities verses the previous year (one hundred and twenty-three deaths) however is in line with pre-coronavirus levels (2020/2021 fatalities were reported at one hundred and forty-five). The data released shows that the industry with the highest number of deaths was the construction industry (with 43 fatalities), however the agriculture, forestry and fishing indu..

A straddle carrier tipped over at Eurogate Container Terminal Hamburg earlier this week, killing the driver The accident occurred shortly before the end of the night shift at around 5am CET (3am GMT) on Wednesday, 18th January 2023. The straddle carrier tipped over as the machine was being driven without a load on the way to pick up a container. The 29-year old driver is believed to have died on impact. His body was taken from the cabin by the fire brigade whilst the police and the Office for Work Protection begun their investigation. When we learn more about this tragic accident, we will let our readers know. Our thoughts are with the friends and family of the young man. ..

As part of a nationwide inspection campaign, the HSE (Health and Safety Executive) visited hand car washing facilities throughout West and Mid Sussex and found "shocking" health and safety failings at 20 of the sites in West and Mid Sussex. The campaign's itinerary shows the next wave of inspections begins this week (19th June 2023) and is moving into East Sussex and Surrey. The nationwide campaign is in response to persistent safety problems with hand car washing businesses following the recent prosecution by HSE of a car valeting company in the North East of England. The majority of issues found during last weeks inspections (throughout West and Mid Sussex) were related to e..

A company has been fined £200,000 after an employee was crushed by a 700kg crate filled with replacement glass. The man who was working at a warehouse located in Stakehill Industrial Estate, Middleton, was moving the crate, with the help of another colleague on the 16th June 2021. The two employees placed the crate on a set of skates and intended to push the load through the PSV Glass and Glazing warehouse. All was going "well" until the crate became unbalanced and fell, trapping the 29 year old worker underneath. The incident caused the worker to suffer two broken ribs, a punctured lung and a fractured vertebra. Six screws and a plate had to be inserted during surgery ..

In the UK, we bear witness to over 1300 fork lift truck accidents every year, which means on average there are five accidents every workday in the UK that involves a forklift. In the US there are over 35,000 serious injuries every year due to forklift operation and OSHA (The Occupational Safety and Health Administration) estimates that over 70% of these incidents were preventable. It’s easy to lose sight of safety in the rush of everyday life, thats why Forklift Safety Day is so important. Forklift Safety Day reminds us to remove the daily assumptions that "the forklift was fine yesterday, it'll be fine today". Forklift safety minimises the dangers related directly and indirec..

Over the last year cost-of-living has impacted us all, but when it comes to travel, the increasing costs are crippling many drivers ability to keep their vehicles maintained and road safe. In a survey (by Brake and AXA) regarding vehicle safety, 58% of people said they are worried about the cost of having their vehicle serviced, 62% concerned about repair bills and 47% of survey respondents worried about the cost of their vehicle MOT. Compared with results from a Brake survey carried out 10 years ago, there was a 7% increase of driving with defective tyres, which may be an indication that people are being forced to take greater risks in response to an increased cost-of-living. Su..

A 51 year old mans right leg was amputated above the knee after he was struck by a telehandler on the 16th March 2022. An investigation by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) found that Eco Waste and Recycling Limited had failed to act on risk assessments and adequately separate vehicles and pedestrians at its Hullocks Pill Hill, Newnham site. Had they acted on risk assessment details, the man would not have been struck by a reversing telehandler whilst he was sorting recyclable materials by hand. Eco Waste and Recycling Limited, of High Firs Crescent, Harpenden, Hertfordshire, pleaded guilty to breaching 4(1) of the Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992 a..

Since the 1970's, NASC (National Access & Scaffolding Confederation) have been providing official accident and injury statistics regarding their family of over 400 contracting firms, scaffolding suppliers and manufacturers. Within this years NASC Safety Report their members have once again raised the standards within the scaffolding industry, plus this year they achieved the lowest Accident Incident Rates and Accident Frequency Rates in the entirety of NASC history reports (going back to 1975). The NASC 2023 Safety Report proves that strictly auditing, providing support (guidance notes, user guides, bulletins, technical and h&s advice) to businesses and employees continues to improve..

Starting on 24 April, the HSE (The Health and Safety Executive) will carry out 100 targeted inspections of fairground and theme park rides following a string of incidents throughout the UK. The campaign's strategy is to promote the safe use of fairground rides and inflatable devices and reduce the risk of catastrophic incidents. The campaign is targeted at both theme park sites and travelling fairgrounds and is set to finish by September 2023. It wasn't long ago that we wrote about an incident at Oakwood Theme Park in Wales when a man and his teenage daughter's support bars failed on a rollercoaster resulting in the man falling 26ft to the ground. In our previous blog we highlighted a str..

Good to Go Safety are pleased to announce the launch of a new inspection checklist system. The latest addition was developed following requests from numerous customers to add a Dumper Truck (otherwise known as a Tipper) to our checklist range. We take our customers' comments and suggestions seriously and after thorough research and development we are pleased to announce that our new Dumper Truck inspection checklist will be available to order from May 2023. Dumper Trucks cause around a one third of all construction traffic accidents, many of which result in deaths and / or serious injuries. Effective maintenance is an essential part of a tipper trucks safe operation. The maintenance pr..

The Health and Safety Executive have launched a campaign called "Work Right - Agriculture" in a bid to reduce farm vehicle deaths and injuries Vehicles play a key role in farm work but incidents involving vehicles are the number one cause of deaths and serious injuries on British farms. The Health and Safety Executive (HSE), Britain's workplace safety regulator, is calling on everyone in the farming community to do what they can to reduce the number of injuries involving vehicles and save lives. HSE is this week launching a farm vehicle safety campaign and has created a website which brings together lots of great advice on using vehicles safely on farms. Vehicle incidents are the numbe..

The UK uses more that three and a half million vans for business activities. As part of targeted roadside checks, the DVSA (Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency) stop around 15,000 vans each year to carry out spot checks on vehicles and issue prohibitions if necessary. A prohibition prevents van drivers from using the vehicle until the problem is fixed and can cost owners and operators up to £4,000 per day, per vehicle. 59.9% of vehicle prohibitions were due to a mechanical defect / failure and 83.9% of vans were overloaded. The top three mechanical defects for light goods vehicles that resulted in a prohibition were: 1. Tyre condition 2. Lights and indicators 3. Steering linkage. ..

Nearly 4000 trailers (including 730 caravans) were checked by the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) between 2019 and 2021. The inspections carried out by the DVSA highlighted significant issues with many of the trailers and caravans. Of the 3,083 trailers (not a caravan) that were inspected, 50% were non-compliant, and 41% were issued with an immediate prohibition (defects so dangerous that repairs are required prior to re-use). The data available shows that construction trailers had the highest prohibition rates (52%), compared to agriculture (32%), livestock (28%) and vehicle transporter (28%). However, analysts have advised that this data should be considered indicative ra..

The Government continues to implement new legislation following the Hackett review and Grenfell Tower Inquiry. This has resulted in amendments to the existing Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 (Fire Safety Order) which governs day to day fire safety. There are also very challenging new fire safety regulations – the Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022 – which came into force on 23 January 2023. With these regulations now in place, we thought we'd remind everyone that TakeAIM can help users to ensure fire safety checks are completed and recorded efficiently and accurately. TakeAIM has pre-installed checklists for numerous fire safety equipment and we also include a generic fi..