Posted By Nicki We recently had an accident/incident which is giving me a great deal of concern and raises one question, should I have done more to prevent this? Basically, one of our employees stopped at a motorway services to re-fill the windscreen washer bottle. He purchsed a windscreen additive at the services and in the process of adding this to his car, high winds blew it into his eyes. To make matters worse he stumbled backwards and was hit by another car, resulting in a broken arm. All of our drivers are given a basic vehicle safety course i.e. checks of fluid levels etc. My concern is should we have included windscreen washer in our CoSHH assessments or send the car into a garage for the most minor service requirement, which sounds unpratical to me. At what point does common sense take over from fully documented risk assessments and method statements? Regards Nicki

Posted By David .J. Minnery Nicki, I do not think that you or the employer could be in anyway responsible for high winds , even if your employee was taking great care as to what he was doing it was a "freak accident", windscreen washer bottles sometimes require to be filled several times a day ,depending on conditions, so your employee was living up to his training and complying with the law [by filling up the windscreen washer bottle]. I would be more concerned about the speed and awareness of the other driver in or around a forecourt area , ask the garage if it was captured by their cctv system and ask for a copy , ask the police if they have seen the cctv tape? I hope your employee is alright . I do not think that your risk assessment would have shown this type of incident up anyway , what do you do supply goggles to everyone filling the windscreen washer bottles and how would you enforce this? maybe you could now supply small funnels to avoid any future problem . Regards David

Posted By Paul Leadbetter Nicki The ACoP for the Management Regs states that employers are expected to take reasonable steps to help themselves identify risks. While you might reasonably anticipate the risk of skin contact (and thus you must consider what needs to be done to control it), is eye contact with windscreen washer liquid reasonably foreseeable? I would say that it is not although I might have to revise my opinion in the light of your employee's experience. Regards Paul

Posted By Brendan Meyler Nikki, Firstly thankyou for bring this case to the attention of the forum. I for one would have never foreseen this incident/accident. Comments like the one posted by Jane Moody are Not Helpful, as this is a discussion forum with a view to providing constructive information for all questions. I hope this does not put you off using the forum again. Regards Brendan

Posted By Nicki All, thanks for all your comments about this incident. As a footnote the driver of the other vehicle was a "member of the public". The police are not taking any action against him. On my way home stopped to fill my own car's, not a company car, washer bottle. The screen wash I purchased has lots of detail about mixing strengths etc but not a single word about and safety risks. I would have thought a caution about not drinking and contact with eyes should have been mentioned!!! Kind Regards Nicki