For better or reverse

In each case, HSE noted that neither company – Bestway Northern Limited (fined £1 million) and British Millerain Company (fined £220k) – had provided training to workers acting as banksmen, nor had they provided a safe system of work for vehicle movements or reversing.

Are these cases just coincidences, or do they point at a bigger problem? We speak to three people involved in different areas of workplace transport to get their views.

Jamie Hassall is executive director at Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety (PACTS). He outlines how fitting vehicles with reversing assistance technology is just part of the solution to making driving for work safe.

Jamie Hassall: "We haven’t had a decent road safety strategy for ages." 

A regulatory gap

Work-related road safety falls between two regulators, where neither the HSE nor the police are completely responsible. Some companies aren’t very good when it comes to managing risks that they don’t have to report or are unlikely to be held accountable for. So, slips strips and falls – all those traditional safety risks get more attention as they are reportable.

In these cases, they happened to occur in a work site – Bestway Northern: at a supermarket the company’s HGV was delivering goods to; and British Millerain Company: at the company’s warehouse. But those same failures, if they had happened around the corner on a pavement and a pedestrian had been killed, it would be unlikely to result in a fine. HSE wouldn’t investigate and for the police, the bar [for corporate manslaughter] is set so high that, to be honest, it’s really hard to get a prosecution.

But we know deaths on roads involving people driving for work is too high. About one-third of road deaths involve someone who’s driving or riding for work. So, these cases are ‘good’ examples in the sense that those companies were fined – it isolates the failings and employers should take note. Poor planning of the work, not including taking steps to mitigate blind spots, or not risk assessing a route; these are things companies tend to be really bad at.

Progress has stalled

We haven’t had a decent road strategy for ages – we’ve had really good periods where deaths on roads have halved, but in the last ten years deaths on roads have flatlined. We had statements [under the David Cameron governments] like 'the war on the motorists is over', which have been unhelpful.

The UK was leading the way on General and Pedestrian Safety Regulations (GSR). Dubbed the ‘biggest advance in vehicle safety since the seat belt’ and a ‘vaccine for vehicles’, they are already in place in Europe and are designed to reduce deaths and serious injuries on the road.

But then, the UK left the European Union and the sensible thing would be to adopt them because we were so active in their formation. But then it got political. It was seen as a European standard, and perhaps the then government didn’t want to be seen to support it, despite the fact that we had led on the work.

New technology expected

There’s a new road safety strategy due out this autumn; we are hopeful GSR will be in it. GSR would apply to new cars, vans, buses, coaches, and heavy goods vehicles, with a suite of safety measures including advanced emergency braking, reversing safety features, intelligent speed assistance, improved direct vision for HGV drivers, and other technologies that protect all road users.

If the UK adopts the standards, it will ensure that all new vehicles coming onto the market will have these basic features. With GSR most private cars because of the way they’re manufactured in Europe, they will have these safety features on them. Some might be optional or you have to pay extra, but they should be there.

With commercial vehicles, they tend to be more ‘commercial’ and therefore if a business owner has the option of buying them without these extra features they might choose to do that because it saves them money.

But technology is just one way of managing the risks. It’s not saying that it has to be the only way. Employers should always ask whether they are managing the risks involved in a task or journey properly. We have found one company Mick George - Construction, that has its own policies to reduce the risk lower than is required legally. They have roads that their lorries won’t drive on, they have lower speed limits than the legal ones, that they apply in villages – they’ll drive at 20 rather than 30 – and they also do some safety training for primary school kids around large vehicles. They’ve got a really good understanding. But a lot of companies, it’s just, ‘you know how to drive. Job done’. And that’s a bit that’s missing.

If the UK adopts new standards, it will ensure that all new vehicles coming onto the market will have basic features including reversing assistance technology. Photograph: iStock

Aaron Peters is head of technical, engineering and policy at the Road Haulage Association. He outlines how reversing incidents involving HGVs are rare, but there’s no room for complacency with shortages of skilled drivers building.

Aaron Peters: "The risk of reversing is always regarded as one of the higher risk actions that a driver undertakes."

A high-risk manoeuvre

The risk of reversing is always regarded as one of the higher risk actions that a driver undertakes and that’s why the recommendation from HSE is to keep reversing to a minimum and where possible to have drive-through lanes. Even for MOT test stations they prefer to have a drive-through test station, so you minimise the need for reversing operations that go on.

‘Everyone plays a part in an incident like this’

Obviously, the number of reversing operations that go on up and down the country is significant and the number that actually results in injury would be a very small quantity across a year. But when incidents do happen they tend to be quite serious so there’s a lot more publication and awareness of them.

For us, it’s all about understanding what that operation needs and what the needs of that driver are – if the operator looks at what technology or resources are available to assist the driver, ensures that’s maintained and working properly, that should lower the number of incidents. With GSR expected to come in in the next couple of years, part of the regulations are reversing aids for the driver so they can actually see what’s behind them and not rely on their mirrors where there could be blindspots.

That would be the main message for us – understand your operations, get in place your risk assessments, understand what training the driver needs to do his job safely and properly.

When it comes to cases like these, the onus is on everyone involved in that operation, from the place that’s taking the delivery, to the driver, to the banksman, to the operator that’s sending him out on the road. There’s a part everyone plays in an incident like this.

The next generation

At the RHA, our focus is on upskilling our drivers and the maintenance technicians and anyone else who might be subject to reversing operations. We know there’s a shortage of skilled people within the industry and we want to encourage upskilling the people we have got and who are already in the remit of that job purpose.

Unfortunately, there’s still an industry wide shortage of drivers which is only going to be made worse. When you look at the age profile of drivers on an HGV, the majority of them are over 55 years old.

As you can imagine, as that age goes up and more of them retire you’ve got a job then to retrain into the industry. At the moment we are looking at being 200,000 drivers short over the next five years, so we need to recruit around 40,000 per annum.

There’s been massive strides with training since the introduction of the drivers’ Certificate of Professional Competence (CPC), with every driver required to undergo 35 hours of training over five years. This amounts to one training day per year, which can be selected for relevance to the operation. One example of this is our Safe Loading of Scaffolding Vehicles CPC Course. The RHA worked extensively with the Scaffolding Association to create this course bespoke to the issues faced by scaffolders.

"At the moment we are looking at being 200,000 drivers short over the next five years." Photograph: iStock

Clare Bottle is chief executive of the UK Warehousing Association. She says that regular training and encouraging a shared sense of responsibility creates a culture of safety, reducing the risk of accidents including those involving reversing.

Clare Bottle: "It’s about making best practice an ingrained habit."

Most warehouses are safe. But safety must never be taken for granted

Everyone plays a part in an incident, therefore everyone plays a part in incident prevention too. My mantra is about creating a culture of safety, which includes regular training not just for drivers, but for everyone working in and around the warehouse. It’s about making best practice an ingrained habit. Ongoing training, visible supervision and encouraging colleagues to look out for each other all combine to reduce the risk of accidents.

Leadership must come from the top. It is shocking to read of cases where there was no safety system in place for reversing HGVs and where “employees had been doing the task for several years but had never received any training.” By contrast, UKWA members are typically proactive about safety: they understand that controlling vehicle and pedestrian movement in and around warehouses is fundamental to keeping people safe. Every day, every shift, every decision matters – because every worker deserves to come home safely.

Hierarchy of risk reduction

At UKWA we promote the HSE’s Guidance on Workplace Transport Safety, alongside our own safety training modules. These provide managers with practical tools for applying the hierarchy of risk reduction.

• Eliminate the risk – for example, excluding pedestrians entirely from areas where forklifts and HGVs are moving.
• Engineering controls – where elimination isn’t possible, physical barriers and traffic segregation can help.
• Administrative controls – influencing behaviour through marked walkways, zebra crossings, mirrors, signage, horns, speed limits, or safety videos at the gatehouse.
• PPE as a last resort – such as high-vis jackets and safety boots. These are important, but PPE should never be the only solution, as it relies on individuals remembering to use it and can be hard to enforce.

Raising the bar: Warehouse Manager CPC

This framework is at the heart of the Warehouse Manager CPC (Certificate of Professional Competence) – a qualification developed by UKWA to raise professional standards in the sector. On the course, managers learn to apply the hierarchy of risk reduction to crush injury risks, draft their own risk assessments, and understand the relevant legislation. Crucially, the CPC also covers other critical safety topics such as manual handling, racking collapse, and lifting equipment.

In short, the CPC equips managers not just with knowledge, but with the confidence to embed a culture of safety within their operation. That culture is what keeps warehouses safe today, tomorrow and in the years to come.