A Lincolnshire-based tyre firm has been fined £300,000 after a worker died when the forklift truck he was operating overturned. Vacu-Lug Traction Tyres did not enforce seatbelt use for forklift truck drivers.
Lincoln Crown Court was told on 15 September that forklift driver Stephen Woollas was transporting tyres on 30 July 2014 when the vehicle ran over a loose tyre on the road at Vacu-Lug’s Grantham base. Click here for more on this article courtesy of IOSH magazine.
As an employer are you up to date with your employees’ forklift truck medicals?
Do you enforce seatbelt use when employees are driving forklift trucks?
Has the relevant driver training been provided to drive forklift trucks for your employees under section 2 of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974.
We have worked with Safewell for many years and are retained clients, so we have developed an excellent working relationship with the team. However, this really came into its own when Covid 19 appeared.
As a Plumbing and Heating business, we were able to carry on working during the lockdown but only for responding to emergencies. We were obviously very concerned about the health and safety of our employees and before we even had chance to get in touch with Safewell, they had emailed us offering their assistance. It is hard to put down on paper how that made us feel - we like everyone else felt totally at sea, which way to turn, what to do? But Safewell were there guiding, supporting and being totally brilliant. Their attention to detail is very impressive and reassuring and we feel able to ask lots of questions without feeling silly.
During the pandemic Safewell helped us to write risk assessments, safety procedures and protocols. They kept in touch regularly, issuing new guidance as soon as it appeared and checking in with us. They held group Q&A sessions over Zoom which were helpful, and knowing other businesses were facing the same challenges and having the opportunity to discuss issues was invaluable. Their help during the preparation for a full return to work was brilliant, they enabled us to be fully prepared and feel in control, and when we had our first case of Covid within the team, because we had planned our response it felt ok.
I think our team felt very reassured by our robust approach and that our office was Covid secure. We are extremely grateful to all the team at Safewell
0 Comments