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Posted By tina
I am dealing with an incident in which rolls of carpet have fallen onto a customer. (Their is a debate on who made them fall) Although ideally we would like carpets in the upright condition chained/roped to the wall, there is no Prescriptive legislation. (The owner believe the way they store is normal)Any one have any case law to show MHSW or HASAW 74 requires upright carpets to be temporary fixed in place at all times.
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Posted By John C
There is no legislation requiring carpets to be chained when upright? ...Does there need to be then?
I think I am reading this one correctly, I think you will put me right if I am misreading it.
A carpet of some 12 or 13ft in length with a base diameter of around one foot to 18 inches. What chance is there of it standing upright without support preventing it from toppling?
I think in this context you have to ask yourself, was the incident foreseeable?
Am I missing something?
I think your client needs to condsider what colour carpet the IP needs in their lounge (for free) :-)
John
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Posted By James M
Tina
Yes there is specific legislation. The HSW Act 1974 requires employers to prevent injury to those NOT in their employment (members of the public). Therefore if an accident has occurred and someone has been injured the following must apply:
The risk assessment was insufficient and not suitable
The management process to protect members of the public failed
What more do you need to do to justify implementing new control measures or does the MD like giving his profits away in unnecessary claims.
Act now or pay later
Good luck
Jim
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Posted By David A Jones
Tina,
I presume you are the EHO investigating this.
I agree with the previous posting regarding the Health and Safety at Work Act.
I would start by asking questions around how the carpets are secured in place - as clearly they need to be, as otherwise this type of incident is reasonably foreseeable - and what needed to be done to prevent them from being secure (i.e. was the securing system suitable and sufficient). Also is there clear signage telling customers not to remove the securing arrangements or to attempt to move the carpets? etc...
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Posted By tina
Thanks for that info. I know the HASA applies to none employees. However the employer is stating that the carpets did not fall, they must have been pulled by the injured parties for compo. The employees back up this statement stating that no carpets have ever fallen in the last 20 years. However I still believe relying on storing carpets vertically with a tilt of 0.5m at the base and no ties, is insufficient, but I can’t prove it. I also believe the customers, that they fell, but action must be based on facts and at the moment I only have the word of the customer and employers.
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Posted By Bill Elliott
Tina - I was under the impresssion that carpets were stored horizontally on a rack with retaining lugs to prevent their falling. It is only off cuts and remnants, which by their nature of being generally smaller and less weighty that are stored end on. Even so, the carpet stores I have seen, all store the remnants in bins or compartments that have retaining bars at just below waist level (I think). I would have thought however, despite "no falls in 20 years" the potential for a substantially weighty carpet falling and injuring someone is a risk that needed addressing and controls put in place.
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Posted By David A Jones
Jim seems to hit the nail on the head in that the carpet company should have risk assessments in place.
Clearly the carpets are big and heavy, therefore they must have some form of manual handling assessment in place, likewise there is an obvious risk that when stored vertically without any form of restraint that there is a reasonable and real possibility of them falling. Given the size and weight of the carpets, the possible consequences are serious in terms of injury -broken bones etc.. It is also reasonable to assume that in a retail environment that customers will want to get near to and touch the carpets, which depending on how well they are secured could result in them falling. Therefore has the carpet comapny done all that is reasonable? - I think not!! We are not talking about a high cost solution.
Many carpet shops that I've been in have a type of racking system that separates adjacent rolls of carpet - these usually seem to employ metal 'C' shaped brackets afixed to the wall, through which it would be very easy to run restraining ropes at various heights to prevent a roll of carpet falling forward onto someone.
So in short, ask for their risk assessments - one covering this risk should be available - if not then the assessment is clearly deficient - if one exists has it adequately covered this issue and were the controls in place?
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Posted By fats van den raad
How is your store manager and employees going to prove that the customer "deliberately pulled" the carpet onto themselves??
It's th same as me saying that an employee "deliberately" stuck his hand into an unguarded machine. the fact that the carpet had a potential to fall without restraint is what matters, not whether it was pulled or not
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Posted By Karen Todd
Tina, Fats,
We have a saying that we use: "How would you stop a determined idiot?".
This helps us to think outside the box, to stop people from thinking that someone would never do such a thing, therefore nothing needs to be done to reduce the risk from a hazard any further. It's not a saying I like using, but it does work. We've had electricians think like this when looking at new work equipment, discover ways to defeat it, then they've reprogrammed the equipment to eliminate these means of defeat.
So, if someone indeed was really determined to do themselves harm, how would you stop them? Securing the carpets sounds reasonable to me, especially when you consider that this is what is done in other stores, i.e. is a fairly common practice.
Regards,
Karen
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Posted By tina
Thanks for all your help. Some have given me things to think on. As for risk assessments, obviously they already had them and the controls proposed by their consultant had been implemented prior to the incident. As for guards on machinery there is proscriptive legislation (PUWR) to deal with guards, so this is easy to deal with, but not so for carpet storage.
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Posted By Laurie
In a phrase, you cannot legislate against idiocy, therefore you must guard against it!
Laurie
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Posted By MarkSMark
I am sure I will be rebuked for this comment, but the way I interpret health and safety law is this.
The more dangerous something is, the more effort you should put into controlling it. Therefore was the carpet that fell a soft shag-type or one of those hard office durable ones? I think the hard office ones should be secured as they could cause more damage.
If there has not been a 'carpet avalanche' in 20 years then surely that suggests that it is not so dangerous. I think the customer was to blame as I fail to see how a carpet would just fall onto them. The shop should sue them!
Tina- I mean no offence in this but it does sound like a compo chaser and maybe it would be better to just leave it to the civil courts so that less of the tax-payers money is wasted.
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Posted By John C
Having on accident in 20 years, does not mean there won't be one. If fact, there has been one...!! Reason: Because of poor controls?
John
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Posted By Peter Lee
Tina, be careful of putting such details on a public website, the persons who had the "accident" can view this site too. Your email address informs us where you work.
I too work for Local Authority but have changed my name for this forum and dont have an email address linked to it.
I suggest you go into "my details" at the right side of this page and amend them.
Regards
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Posted By Simon Ayee
In a retail area it is forseeable that customers will want to handle roll ends displayed in this way especially if they are stacked more than one layer deep i.e. to get a better look etc.
Measures that can be used to prevent toppling include: suitable chains/ties, wall mounted brackets at a suitable height to restrict lateral movement (say every 1 - 1.5 m), a batten fixed to the floor to prevent slippage of the end on the foor (if say a wooden floor rather than carpet, choosing a suitable angle of lean (think ladders), signs to instruct customers to seek assistance (not enough by itself).
There may be other reasons (such as MH risk, damage to light fittings) to seek an alteranative display methods. I have also seen "mountains" of roll ends stored horizontally on the floor which create their own set of H&S hazards.
Hope this helps
Simon
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Posted By Keith32
I agree with the general level of agreement in this thread - the shop appear to be at fault. The risk assessment should have identified reasonably foreseeable risks, which I think the case here - of course a customer would want to touch/assess the quality of the carpet. Leaving carpets rolls on end is asking for an accident- its just taken 20yrs to happen.
As others have stated some form of roll racking is fairly normal in a carpet shop or samples/off cuts displayed with the rolls kept in the warehouse etc.
As regards specific legislation - what about the Health, Safety and Welfare Regs, specifically Reg 13.
'SFARP suitable and effective measures shall be taken to prevent....
3(b) any person being struck by a falling object likely to cause personal injury.
What I find most interesting, and no offence meant, if the lady who posted this thread is an EHO, how come she didn't know what legislation covered such issues.
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