Posted By steve blackledge
first of all i am a local H&S rep in a large warehouse, today a FLT driver was unloading a delivery lorry from the side, he reversed out and turned 90 degree and proceded forwards, as he did two metal bin's fell sideways towards the delivery lorry cab with the contents spilling right upto the lorry, the lorry driver was stood 2 meters back from the cab, no injury occured,,,this time.
Our on site FLT engineer inspected the fork's but found no fault as alledged by the driver.
The 5 ton FLT has 2.5 meter forks which were lifting 4 metal bins (2+2 1000kg) and it was the end two which fell off, the bin nearest the truck was damaged which held the front bin's slightly off the forks at the rear

The canopy area slopes down hill slightly in the direction which the bin's fell

the FLT driver has a reputation for over eagerness, he even stated that the last four lifts were awkward and the bins swayed about a bit.

This raises several issues

1. should this person be allowed to operate FLT's even if he passes a refresher coarse

2. better control required of delivery drivers and pedestrians who are free to walk aound during unloading, even with high viz clothing

3. can a better re-useable container be used

i have raised a near miss alert and will be following this up with an accident investigation. The FLT operator's manager want's to put it down to the part supplier sending damaged bin's, which in my mind is an easy excuse,,, but only i can close the near miss alert when i feel all actions have been taken to reduce the liklyhood of it happening again, we'll see tommorow.

sorry for the long winded report, have a brew on my tab

Posted By MT
Yes, sounds like there are several issues going on here. Agree with Dave, that the FLT driver should check the load is is about to lift, and if he identifies damage to the load which means it cannot be lifted safely, then he needs a way of flagging that up and feeling empowered to say that he won't move the load.

Regarding the lorry driver almost becoming an accident victim, I would strongly recommend that you review the current situation which as you say is that drivers are free to walk around during unloading. Drivers are a vulnerable group, and procedures should be in place to protect them from other vehicles in the yard. They should be required to report to the warehouse (or wherever) and then there should be somewhere safe for them to go during loading/unloading. The HSE has some good stuff here: http://www.hse.gov.uk/wo...lacetransport/index.htm, especially the inspection checklist which you can print off and use. See item 6 (un)loading activites in particular and 7 on Driver Competence.

Posted By Crim
The FLT operator's manager may be right about the bins being damaged, or just not loaded correctly. You should at least consider this point in your enquiry?

Posted By steve blackledge
Thanks for the reply's, very much appreciated.
the driver concerned admit's he new the bin's were unstable but he felt he had to unload them asap due to work pressure from above.

today took a turn for the worse, another FLT driver unloading a two deck trailor turned his truck over at a seperate warehouse, thankfully he was not injured, he lifted a heavy palletised box off the top deck, and as he reversed out the weight of it overturned the truck, it turned out to be overloaded by the customer, this incident is reportable under RIDDOR. Following this incident a couple of employees came to me in confidence to report bad practice from other individual's, this is now a much more high profile investigation so hopefully we can get things moving along before somebody becomes just another stastistic. Wish me luck for tommorow.

Posted By steve blackledge
just to clerify, in our SSOW drivers are supposed to remain in cab's during unloading / loading but the FLt drivers tend to turn a blind eye if they get out for a chat or whatever. This IS going to change

Posted By GARRY WIZZ
I had a similar problem at a large warehouse owned by big blue chip company. They did take safety seriously.

Persons competent yes
Persons trained Yes

Persons complying with training.... most of the time.

Was I receiving reports from Managers & Supervisors relating to non compliance. NO

So I had 2 main causes.

A)Failure to comply with training SSW
B)Supervision failure


Correcting point B went a long way to raising standards.

So amongst the standard checks suggest a review to confirm if the control, supervision does actually work.