How to manage vehicle safety around material handling equipment.

David Thomas, General Manager, ZoneSafe

Activities associated with material handling carry many risks. The movement, control, storage, or disposal of products involves heavy goods and machinery, creating difficult working conditions and safety risks.

There are many safety risks to consider around machinery and workplace transport. Conveyors, HGVs, forklifts, shovel loaders, pallet trucks, and other similar industrial vehicles are commonly used, all of which present well-known risks to operators and workers.

Last year, a recycling company was fined more than £2 million following the death of an agency worker hit by a loading shovel. The victim was struck and run over by the vehicle four years previous, in what the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) later called an avoidable accident. The investigation found the company guilty of corporate manslaughter. It stated that the use of effective segregation of vehicles and pedestrians through an alternative traffic route at the site would have prevented the death (1).

This is sadly an all-too-common result of such accident investigations. Loading shovels, in particular, have come under the spotlight within the recycling sector. The HSE issued a safety notice about their use following nine fatal vehicle-pedestrian accidents over a four-year period . The HSE notice highlighted the need for improved driver visibility and rigorous segregation between vehicles and pedestrians (2).

Forklifts, too, are disproportionately represented in serious and fatal accidents in the workplace. A UK plastics manufacturer was fined £400,000 when an employee was seriously injured by a forklift truck. In an area with multiple pedestrians working in close proximity to vehicles, the man was struck by the forklift while walking to collect materials, and the driver failed to see him. The investigation found that although safety systems were in place, they were not being followed, and nothing was in place to measure compliance.

These accidents make clear the need for an ongoing and dedicated commitment to safety around vehicles and pedestrians. Vehicle operators should always be able to maintain strong situational awareness of the other vehicles and people around them.

The best way to reduce the chance of these terrible accidents is to effectively segregate vehicles and pedestrians around material handling operations.

This can be achieved through:

• Traffic control systems such as one-way routes, dedicated reversing areas, crossings, safety signage, traffic lights, and barriers.
• Separate routes with dedicated paths for pedestrians and vehicles are clearly marked with signage, barriers and floor markings.
• Personal protective equipment (PPE), including high visibility jackets, helps make pedestrians as visible as possible to drivers.
• Safety technology to alert drivers and pedestrians to the presence of risk. Proximity warning technology alerts drivers and pedestrians to nearby hazards through pedestrian tag vibration, in-cab audio and/or visual alarms that instantly raise awareness at a crucial moment so that accidents can be avoided.
• Active signage that communicates directly with moving vehicles automatically illuminates on approach so that anyone in the area is immediately aware of the risk around them.

The nature of material handling activity makes risk unavoidable, but there are ways to minimise and manage that risk efficiently. Anywhere vehicles and pedestrians work closely with each other, there is potential for danger —the key is to take a proactive, preventative approach that targets hazards and stops accidents in their tracks.

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