Company fined after driver loses fingers on unsafe equipment

Date:

25 January 2013

Release No:

LSE/18/13

A Dorset contractor has been fined for safety failings after a lorry driver suffered a serious hand injury while using unsafe wheel cleaning equipment on a construction site near Barnet.

The driver lost his entire index finger, half of his middle finger and severed the end of his ring finger on his right hand in the incident at a golf driving range undergoing renovation close to the A1 Barnet By-Pass on 22 July 2010.

It was not possible to reattach the fingers and he has been left with permanent injuries.

Westminster Magistrates’ Court heard this week (23 January) that he was attempting to use a wheel spinner, which removes mud and debris from vehicles before they access public roads.

However, the equipment at the site, operated by Poole-based principal contractor Woodland Environmental Ltd, was in poor working order and had been adapted, which forced drivers to adopt an unsafe way of using it.

An investigation by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) identified that a rope was held taut to hold a brake lever in position, and that as the driver attempted to release this it caught and severed his fingers.

The rope had been attached to the brake lever for several months and had no place on the equipment. The condition of the wheel spinner was the responsibility of Woodland Environmental, but their management systems for monitoring equipment and procedures proved inadequate.

Woodland Environmental Ltd, of Hatch Pond Road, Poole, was fined a total of £5,000 and ordered to pay £8,833 in costs after pleading guilty to two separate breaches of the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998.

After the hearing HSE Inspector Stephron Baker Holmes said:

"Those who provide work equipment need to take effective steps to ensure that it continues to function properly, and to ensure that it is not subject to clumsy, make-do adaptations – as was the case here.

"The failures of Woodland Environmental Ltd contributed to a wholly preventable incident that has left the lorry driver with permanent, life-changing injuries."

Notes to editors

1. The Health and Safety Executive is Britain's national regulator for workplace health and safety. It aims to reduce work-related death, injury and ill health. It does so through research, information and advice; promoting training; new or revised regulations and codes of practice; and working with local authority partners by inspection, investigation and enforcement. www.hse.gov.uk
2. Regulation 4(1) of the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998 states: "Every employer shall ensure that work equipment is so constructed or adapted as to be suitable for the purpose for which it is used or provided."
3. Regulation 5(1) of the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998 states: "Every employer shall ensure that work equipment is maintained in an efficient state, in efficient working order and in good repair."
4. Further HSE news releases are available at www.hse.gov.uk/press.

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