Posted By David Buchanan My company is a fairly large steel stockholder, which delivers its product via flatbed trailers. Although side posts are in place on all our vehicles, this doesn't offer any form of meaningful edge protection for a driver who is having to work on top of the trailer. We have considered a number of solutions, including a commercially available fall arrest system. If cost were the only consideration, this wouldn't be a problem - our main criteria are useability and effectiveness. If it looks too complicated and time-consuming to deploy, then it won't get used outside of the depots. Much of our business involves multi-drop consignments of small loads of steel to individual clients. Therefore expecting drivers to don harnesses and erect a fall arrest line at each drop (especially agency drivers) would be a leap of faith too far. My preferred solution is some form of retractable safety curtain/barrier. This could be mounted behind the cab on both sides and then drawn along the length of the trailer via a rod or pole from the ground and anchored at the rear corner posts. What I need is a product robust enough to take the weight of a driver who has stumbled or stepped backwards off the side of the trailer. I acknowledge that the rear of the trailer is still exposed, however guarding the sides will protect over 90% of the trailer's edge and will reduce the risk of a fall significantly. I believe that fall arrest netting and appropriate inertia reels would provide the ideal solution, but have not been able to source such a product. I've sent a drawing of this idea to a couple of safety equipment providers in the hope that they can come back with a design proposal. Does anyone out there know of anything like this currently on the market? Alternatively, would you be able to design and produce a prototype if, as I suspect, no such product already exists? If so, please let me know.

Posted By David Buchanan Hi Frank Thanks for your reply. Unfortunately I can't post a picture of the idea here though if you or anyone else would like to see it then please contact me direct at: david.buchanan@barrettsteel.com The only occasions when drivers would not have to climb up onto the trailers is at those sites where sideloader lift trucks are in operation. The driver still may have to climb up to post stillage (separators) between stock. The majority of loads however are slung and hoisted by gantry cranes, requiring the driver to climb up and position the slings before coordinating the hoist operation. For the curtain/barrier the gap height above the trailer bed would be about 470mm I suppose, with a barrier width/height of around 1000mm. In the event that stock heights effectively negate the barrier (i.e. when the driver cannot avoid standing on raised levels of stock, then an additional second stage barrier could be deployed at 470mm above the lower one). This one would probably be attached to a pole wich would insert into the corner post. I expect the netting would be of the 5mm diameter and 100mm mesh square polypropylene type. Regards

Posted By Robert K Lewis Just jumping outside of the box a little it seems to me that your drivers are going to be carrying around additional kit with the consequent problems, and you will need a set for each vehicle. The question is therefore do you actually need to do the slinging, has this been inserted into your delivery order? If customers have gantry cranes around then I suspect they have the ability to deal with the problem with their own staff and equipment. They are in a good position to set up a suitable delivery bay and provide the trained staff. I always feel that these shared responsibility lifts are a recipe for disaster. As an aside I presume that all of your drivers are trained signaller and slingers, if not then you need to stop what is happening very quickly and rectify it if you need to. Of course if you are landed with the responsibility then your options are limited to those given. Try to move the responsibility if you can though - Remember Risk Export may be beneficial to you and is acceptable as a control measure. Bob

Posted By gc A related aside. I was invloved with a court case (pre-wAHR)where an experienced driver fell off the flat bed at a customers premises resulting in an injury that kept him out of work for best part of 3 years. There was no risk assessment and no training for the driver, a forklift was available to unload from both sides but he dragged pallets from one side to the other to save time. In the summation the judge said that no reasonable employer would train a driver not to fall off the back of his lorry, and subsequently dismissed the claim, not a penny. The exception rather than the rule I think.

Posted By David Buchanan Hi Steve and thanks for the input. If the risks were limited to our own depots then yes such a system would be practicable and enforceable. The biggest problem however remains that when the driver arrives at the customer's premises, there is no such provision. Our sister company provides structural steel for construction sites. Their loads are usually very high and are single delivery drops. They have opted for the Severfield-Rowen off-load system. This is client driven as it is to be used by the steel erectors at the receiving end rather than the drivers themselves. It seems effective and the time and equipment needed to deploy it is less of an issue. The nature of our business frequently demands deliveries to multiple customers from the same trailer load. Therefore we need to develop a system that is quick and simple to use in order to encourage compliance. We would aim ensure compliance by canvassing our customers to see whether the system is being deployed, however it is in everyone's interests to make the system as simple to use as possible. Thank you to everyone who has replied on this subject - all ideas are welcome. I have even received an offer of a testing service from the HSL. I'm currently working on a design with a height safety company to develop a workable product - looks as though the inertia reel idea is likely to be a non-starter due to the length of line involved (up to 40 feet) and the delay in engagement of the device. Therefore when extended the line(s) will need to be anchored and possibly tensioned, however the retractable aspect is still an important and hopefully viable feature.

Posted By Chris Pope David what is the Severfield-Rowen system ? One idea which probably doesn't apply to long structural steels, but has been adopted by larger scaffolding firms is the drop body where the whole of the load carrying bed & headboard are on bogeys which slide off the wagon on a tilting rail. Work at heights - obviated, although that surely isn't the reasoning for the scaffolders !

Posted By David Buchanan Thanks for your replies. Chris, I've emailed the SR system to you - if anyone else would like to receive this, just email me direct. As to playing devil's advocate, I'm not sure how much weight that defence would carry in a liability claim. It may work for now with the enforcing authorities, but as we all know eventually technology catches up and will provide a solution to fill the gap. As I'm finding out, from others in the industry, the need for an engineering solution to this issue is becoming more pressing. Another example is the addition, or rather absence, of side posts to trailers to prevent the fall of stock from the side. This has been resisted by many hauliers to date (next time you're on the motorway, look for those with and those without), yet fatalities do occur because of this. As a company we recently experienced a dangerous occurence where 6 tonnes of steel fell from the side of a sub-contracted hauliers trailer at one of our depots. If side posts had been fitted this would not have happened. Chorus I believe, are in the fortunate position of being able to insist on all vehicles entering their sites to be so equipped and have done so. We are not at that stage yet, though hopefully it won't take a fatality before it happens. My point is that whilst we manage our own vehicles and are able to help develop an engineering solution to the problem, I would rather press ahead with this now than have to react to a serious injury in the future. I don't know the current statistics nationally for this type of occurence, but if steel stockholding is anything to go by then I'm sure they must be significant. Yes, all our drivers are informed about the risks though to be honest the accident reports demonstrate that this affords little effective protection against them. In the current legal climate, the 'soft' controls of informing, training and supervising an employee will only go so far. Again, we may avoid a prosecution, but a liability claim is harder to defend when there is an immediate sympathy for the injured party on behalf of the courts. I realise this may be contentious and open up another forum thread, but we have a current claim which bears this out. The point about reducing the risk by 50% would be true if the driver only had to climb onto the trailer once for each trailer load. However, due to the multi-drop nature of the loads carried, this is more apt to be in the region of 10% or less across the group. I also anticipate that if a solution can be developed along the lines which I've described, then the applications will be much further reaching.