The Building Safety Group (BSG) has reported a 74% rise in Traffic Management breaches on construction sites
BSG’s figure is based on approximately 11,000 independent inspections conducted for the construction industry over a six month period, comparing Q2 with Q3 in 2017. The increase coincides with the HSE’s announcement that on average, 7 workers die every year as a result of accidents involving vehicles or mobile plant on construction sites. A further 93 are seriously injured.
According to BSG’s report, the majority of construction transport accidents result from the inadequate separation of pedestrians and vehicles. This can usually be avoided by careful planning, particularly at the design stage, and by controlling vehicle operations during construction work.
Paul Kimpton, Managing Director for BSG, said: “The law says that you must organise a construction site so that vehicles and pedestrians using site routes can move around safely. Routes need to be suitable for the people or vehicles using them, in suitable positions and sufficient in number and size.”
He added: “Our message is that vehicle accidents on site can and should be prevented by the effective management of transport operations throughout the construction process.”
The dangers of poor traffic management were recently made clear when an Essex-based road haulage firm, YCT Ltd, was fined £170,000 after an employee was crushed between two articulated vehicles and subsequently died from his injuries. A Wolverhampton-based demolition firm, LPD Demolition, was also fined £50,000 after one of its employees was crushed by a reversing excavator leaving him with punctured lungs, liver injuries and multiple fractures to his legs and pelvis.
Based on a report from the HSE, ‘being struck by a moving vehicle’ now accounts for 19% of worker fatalities, which is the second highest type of accident reported. The most common kind of fatal accident is still ‘Working at Height’ which accounts for 26%.
