I would suggest that your company puts some employees through a competency / training course. Should a serious incident occur and an investigation needed then operative training/competency will be looked into the same as if an operative had an accident whilst driving a machine like a FLT (were they trained to do so etc). Once operatives/employees trained then yes they would be only ones allowed to bank vehicles as required, obviously making sure that there is enough cover in case of illness, holidays etc.

I agree with Mr Flibble do you really need a banksman , have you got a current traffic management plan in place and risk assessment , also you should run through the hierarchy of controls first looking at one way systems turning circles to avoid the need for reversing . If this cannot be achieved then you should implement trained competent banksmen with regular briefing to all the workforce and drivers Hope this helps Chris

I believe that the new term is 'reversing assistant' where the only activity is reversing vehicles etc as a banksman is for more in-depth, risky and complicated areas

EyeSee, I think (like other posters) that you need to decide if you do actually require someone to assist reversing vehicles. I would ask the people who work in the area if there is a problem and if so if they have any ideas to help. Whatever you decide should be reflected in your safety documentation (risk assessments, traffic management plan, safety arrangements or whatever you have). When you have decided I would then put out a safety notice saying either nobody should help reversing or Mr Jones, Mr Smith, Miss White etc are the only employees trained and authorised to assist in reversing vehicles. Review your decision periodically as a normal RA. When I worked in a container terminal we had 3000 + vehicles a day reversing into a line of 9 bays each with 5 lanes loading and unloading containers. We did not provide any kind of reversing help but as a traffic management issue all vehicles drove on the right hand side once they entered the terminal. Drivers were required to stand in designated safe areas whilst loading & unloading was taking place. We never had a problem with reversing using this solution. Take Care

Eyesee, if you want to do something other than that advised by the HSE Inspector then I would ring them and discuss it; but its pointless asking the HSE if untrained managers can act as banksmen as this would cause the inspector even more concern. Banksman training is not complicated and can be done in-house with a good trainer who understands the site and its transport operations and its particular risks. here are some good banksman training slides http://www.kettering.gov...raining_presentation.pdf Also consider the drivers; few drivers are trained in the correct banksman signals and we may have drivers from all over the globe. Steve

I have acted as a banksman or assisting a vehicle if you prefer, on many occasions and without any formal training! Even though we do have trained banksmen they are not always available on a large site at any given time. Surely, it is better to assist a driver than to ignore the situation. Indeed, I did it today and the HGV in question had nothing to do with our company. Whatever happened to 'sensible h&s management'?

I would be careful with introducing banksmen (or reversing assistants if you prefer). It does require training and is a skill in itself, so not everyone will have the ability required. It may appear that the Inspector was concerned about the combination of moving vehicles and people in the same location at the same time. In my experience, most drivers will ignore signals from teh ground and use their own skills anyway as it is they that will have to answer questions if their vehicle is damaged! In some areas (e.g HGVs loading onto a Ferry) Banksmen are used and will push in a drivers' mirrors to prevent him from ignoring their instructions. This is because a Banksman has responsibility for a vehicle he is directing and this raises the question of frequency. If you train and employ banksmen, they must control EVERY vehicle movement and so must be available at all times. If you have a lot of vehicle movement, this is a full time job! As has already been mentioned, what you may need is better traffic control system; prevent people and moving vehicles interacting and let the drivers drive themselves.

But aren't these slides about par for amny courses we see - a lot of padding waffle and seemingly little real skill giving - I can't see any evidence for genuine practical work and testing (pass/fail) in all of it. Yes I agree reversing signallers placed at the rear is High Risk - so why not place them at the front? Bob