05.04.2013

Death Wish costs £2k

A farmer in the UK has been fined £2,000 after using a telehandler bucket as a form of powered access.

The event – a clear Death Wish - was photographed last February by a passer-by who then contacted the Health & Safety Executive. The Hampshire farm manager Peter Kirby, 62, of Newton Valence Farm, near Alton was then prosecuted for putting his two employees at risk by using the grain bucket of his telehandler to lift them up to work on the gable end of a barn.
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The two men caught on camera working from a telehandler bucket

Kirby used the telescopic handler in spite of having attended a safety day run by HSE less than a year before where a dummy had been dropped from a grain bucket attached to a forklift truck to demonstrate the risks.

The court heard that although no one had been injured during the incident, Kirby’s experience would have made him fully aware of the risks of using unsuitable work platforms and he was fined £330 plus £1,757 in costs.
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A closer look

HSE Inspector Craig Varian said: "Mr Kirby had been given quite recent training and advice by HSE and consultants and had the opportunity to use the correct equipment provided by his employer to carry out this job safety. Yet, despite all this, he lifted two men several metres in the air using an unsuitable work platform.”

"Often, people about to do a job believing it will only take a few minutes take a risk in the hope that simply being careful will be enough. This display of bad practice could have resulted in serious injury, or even death, whether it lasted a couple of minutes or a couple of hours.”

"The bucket has no fall protection measures and there is also the risk of being tipped out accidently. If they could not use an authorised work platform specifically designed to lift people and fitted to a telehandler then they could have used a tower scaffold.”

"Agriculture is one of the top three most dangerous sectors to work in and has a high fatality rate. Falls from height are a significant contributor to that and HSE will continue to prosecute companies and individuals who fall well below the expected standards."

Vertikal Comment

While we are all in favour of naming and shaming and believe that our Death Wish series does make a small contribution to safety, this does smack a little of big brother. It is by no means the first time this has happened and if there is to be any change such prosecutions must increase.

It is usually the only thing that such people understand, we know that in most cases if you approach those doing such stupid things you will at best get abuse, and in the odd case more threatening behaviour.

There have been too many cases of employees falling from telehandler buckets and other such accidents arising from inappropriate access equipment not to take firmer action. The safety authorities need to spread the message more widely so that employees feel able to say “No! My life is too valuable”. And in the construction area clients need to speak up if a contractor they are using employs grossly unsafe access equipment.

While I hate the idea of a society where people inform on others – it is the only way – and after all the vast majority of us readily do so in the case of seeing a crime committed. And this sort of activity is just another crime and should be seen as such.