Workplace transport safety An employers' guide - ARRI Lighting Rental

Health and Safety
Executive
205 Many delivery and collection accidents could be prevented if there was better
co-operation between the people involved. A lack of any agreement about ‘who is
responsible for what’ in terms of safety is a common factor in delivery accidents.
Case study 1
A site employee suffered severe injuries when he was trapped against a
doorframe by a lift truck, driven by an untrained operator.
When a delivery arrived earlier than expected, there wasn’t a trained lift
truck operator available on site. The delivery driver decided to operate the
site lift truck himself to unload. He reversed into pallets, over-corrected and
reversed into the site employee.
The site operator should have made sure that only authorised people could
use the lift truck. The site operator and the driver’s employer should have
liaised and agreed procedures for unloading deliveries. These procedures
should have included fixing a time for vehicles to arrive with deliveries. The
driver should not have tried to operate a site vehicle without authorisation.
206 In most work situations, the safety of an employee is mainly the responsibility
of their employer. However, to deliver or collect goods, employees have to visit
premises controlled by others. The safety of everyone at these premises, including
visitors, is in the hands of the person in charge of the site – the supplier for
collections or the recipient for deliveries.
207 This overlap can cause dangerous misunderstandings. Everyone involved
needs to exchange information about the main risks involved, and agree who will
do what to control risks.
208 By law, if two or more employers share a workplace, even temporarily, they
must co-operate to make sure they all meet their legal duties.
209 The number of people involved and how often deliveries take place will affect
the extent of arrangements between companies involved in a delivery.
210 All parties involved in deliveries should exchange and agree information to
make sure goods can be delivered and collected safely. Even for a ‘one-off’
delivery, everyone involved should communicate to make sure safety responsibilities
have been met.
211 The main purposes of good communication about deliveries and collections
are:
n to make expectations clear;
n to ask others involved whether they can meet these expectations; and
n if expectations cannot be met, to agree what to do. If an agreement cannot
be reached on how significant safety issues will be dealt with, the delivery or
collection should not take place.
212 Everyone involved in a collection or a delivery should achieve the following
three aims:
n to send out safety information on deliveries and collections to other parties
involved in the supply chain;
n to receive safety information on deliveries and collections from other parties
involved in the supply chain;
n to agree a safe delivery plan between everyone involved.
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