Posted By Pete Longworth Can you give us a bit more detail, because I can't see how someone who opens a door can be blamed when someone else hits it?

Posted By Robert_N Please forgive the lack of detail. The driver hit a roller shutter which was not lifted to its fullest and it has been mentioned that the driver can not be blamed as the course was the door not being opened fully.

Posted By Sharon Yes, in agreement with Pete on this one.

Posted By Fornhelper When working in the railways we had a 'driver' (actually an electrician who was permitted to test drive locomotives) who had the same experience....only thing was the roller shutter door was fully closed at the time !! We certainly never 'blamed' the person who shut the door for that one :-) No-one hurt...just a very embarrassed electrician and a heavily dented roller shutter door!!! FH

Posted By Fornhelper Andy Maybe the driver was just not paying attention....it happens. There is a low railway bridge close to where I live that gets hit at least twice a year by lorry / bus drivers who fail to see the warning signs. There have been numerous improvements in the signage / warnings over the years but how do you overcome human frailities. I agree that there are steps that can be taken in the situation described (e.g. door either fully opens or closes when operated) and whilst I don't buy into the blame culture sometimes you sometimes have to accept that human failings cause accidents. If we replace the word 'blame' with 'root cause' or something similar then maybe we would be having a different debate here. Incidentally - to tie into another thread that is ongoing - if a H & S adviser had carried out a workplace 'traffic management assessment' in this area would they be 'to blame' if the risk assessment hadn't identified the likelihood of this occurring?? FH

Posted By A Campbell If the H&S advisor involved the workforce & management in the workplace traffic risk assessment more than likely the issue may be raised at the time. To conduct one from a desk or on his/her tod would potentially miss aspects that could be foreseen in certain circumstances. My rule... ALWAYS involve the workforce, observe what they do, what they use and how they do it... as well as environment, people and exclude perceptions wherever possible

Posted By Raymond Rapp Robert Bit of a 'poisened chalice' this one me thinks. As others have pointed out, the term 'blame' should avoided in accident investigations. I prefer to use the terms immediate cause and underlying cause(s), as they do not infer any blame. Also, as an ex-train driver I have seen at first hand how 'operator error' is used to cover other management inadequacies and to the detriment of the safety culture. Moreover, if two people caused an accident then they were both responsible to some degree. Accidents are rarely the fault of one person or cause, understanding them is corollary of the exercise. Interesting thread. Ray

Posted By Robert_N I thank you all for the responses and as always you have pointed me in the direction I needed. I would like to say sorry firstly for my starting the thread in a bad mood which I believe may have come across. Lastly the poor use of words manily "Blame" the story is bigger than I have explained and I got wrapped up in the fact that some poor person was taking the full BLAME.

Posted By Steve Cartwright This reminds me a bit like a program I used to watch that Jasper Carrot used to present. I though it was Friday when I first read it. I was driving my forklift and this door appeared from nowhere and I hit it with my mast. Come on. You can pussy foot around all you like but at the end of the day the guy on the truck was in control of it or not as it would appear. Its a bit like saying I only drove into the back of you because you stopped.

Posted By Barry Cooper How about "The door came down and hit my truck"

Posted By Andy Brazier HSG48 First published 1989

Posted By John Richards The days are LONG gone when you can tell someone it is their fault, and there's the door...."you're sacked" You may need to include, in a contract, that driving into a door constitutes gross misconduct. Even then, the odds are that an employment court will conclude the dismissal was unfair. Bang goes another few thousand, or more, and costs.

Posted By Barry Cooper Yes Ray, but much more fun sacking em! Barry

Posted By Richard Altoft See Regulation 13 of MHSW Regs 1999. An employer must be sure workers can carry out tasks entrusted to them without creating danger to selves or others. Any FLT driver with a tendency to hit doors should be taken off his FLT, retrained or reassigned to something less risky such as a brush and shovel. This is in essence the difference between competence and capability. Not a blaming thing just a managing risk as employers are required to do, morally, legally and economically thing. R

Posted By Tabs Pressumably there is no reference mark for people to open the door to ... a minimum height that a travelling FLT can pass under safely? I know that once loads are added this might vary, but the FLT driver would be specifically aware of this variation. Going through a door hundreds of times per year becomes almost automatic. As he approached, was there clear visual clues that he would hit? You don't say by how much the door was too low. It is easy to blame, but not much more difficult to have prevented it. I can't believe that there were not any near-misses that could have given a clue.

Posted By John Richards I consider the paddington event to be a bad analogy. Warnings about that signal were frequent and many. As for the flt V door event: I don't see any hope of instant dismissal being either just or reasonable. You would need to suspend the driver (on full pay) while an investigation was carried-out. You would need to consider the reasons/excuses given for the accident,by the driver and probably the person who closed the door (if he/she can be found). You may even need to consider whether the door was closed deliberately by another person so as to cause the accident (a door being closed partially is not the norm). I've known many problems caused by people trying to cause trouble for others, and usually succeeding. If a person is in a union then he/she will have excellent legal representation to help them, and just because your company may be non-union does not mean that individuals are not in a union. You should also note, in the event of an employment court being invoked, that a third party (usually acas) will be required to seek a compromise between the parties involved. If someone is "shown the door" after an event they are about 90% sure to be awarded some compensation. Management idiocy has swollen many a solicitors coffers, and they do not seem to be getting any brighter.

Posted By TBC On further reflection - This is a lesson learn't and shouldn't really happen again. I think a verbal warning would suffice, he certainly won't do it again and others will take more notice.

Posted By Garry Homer I have worked for a company with a 'no blame' culture and a 'get it right first time' ethos. These were ideals that were not believed by the staff as the managers' first response was, 'who the hell was supposed to be in charge of this fiasco!' before they found out anything about the incident. As the senior engineer, I once had a grilling and told I must have done something wrong even though I told them I was not on site at the time. I was under the threat of being suspended from duties for lying while they wasted their time checking everything I had been testing that had nothing to do with the incident under investigation. Two days later, an operator at another company finally admitted he had made a mistake and remotely operated the equipment on my site. I am glad I had left the site to visit the local supermarket during my lunch-break as I was beginning to believe what I was being accused of. The fact that I was off site was supported by other staff on the site but ignored by management who thought they were just covering for me. Even though this has been my experience, I believe someone is always at fault and it is just a case of finding the right person. There may be contributing factors but ultimately it is a person who either commits the act or fails to carry out an action to prevent the event. My spin on this incident was. It was the responsibility of the other remote company to have procedures in place that physically prevented their staff from being able to operate equipment in one half of a site while work was being carried out on the other half. My side of the site being already locked out and labelled. All that was required was a lock and notice to be applied on a panel where every control was identical to its neighbour, to cause the operator to re-check what he was about to do. Their solution was to suspend their chap and re-train him because he had made this mistake before on the same panels and was under caution. Hence his reluctance to step forward and admit his error immediately. He too worked for a 'No Blame' company. His manager was not going to step forward and say, 'well, perhaps if we had a process whereby ..... then it could not happen' as this would also expose his behind for a kicking. When procedures are developed at a very high level in a big organisation and by luck or good judgement these have been apparently adequate for years, it is extremely difficult to get them changed. The world has turned a few times since then. I wonder if labels and locks are now used or will the incident be repeated, as it must some day? Garry

Posted By Merv Newman Garry, No, no, no but also yes, yes, yes. Local managment, and I mean that quite sincerely, are 100% responsible for safety at their locality. Risk assessments, Safety plans, whatever. it is the "owner" of the site where the work happens who is responsible. Might be a £100/weeker, might be a director at £100,OOO/year. Personaly (merv still being radical this afternoon) I would go for the top (sorry, no asterisks allowed) Until we get really serious personal fines/prison sentences (your house, your cars, your daughter's horse ...) then there ain't nothing going to happen. Merv OK, let me get reallyreally radical. "Mister Diretor, someone has just died in your factory. So your life is forfeit. Your house, your cars, your horses, your garden. Your liberty. All gone" Am I being too radical ? Merv

Posted By Steve Cartwright Agree with Merv that Directors are responsible for H&S. However employees do have to take responsibility for their actions (section 7) but this will depend on each individual incident. With regards to this one and based on the info provided I would say that the FLT Driver was at fault. This is based on my 20 years experience of driving FLT's. One of the things that was drummed into us was always ensure that the route is clear and always be aware of overhead obstructions. It can be very hard to legislate for stupidity.