Article from SHP Magazine August 2005
Leicester-based haulage company, Pall-Ex(UK), has been fined a total of £100,000 after a driver was killed when his forklift truck fell on him.
The Nottingham Crown Court heard that on the 10th January 2003, Moray Inglis had been driving a forklift truck at the central depot in Gotham, where deliveries were brought in. While Mr Inglis was unloading and reloading for onward destinations, a lorry driver pulled forward, not realising a pallet was still being unloaded at the time. It pulled the forklift trucks forks causing it to overturn on top of Mr Inglis, trapping and fatally injuring him.
"It was that system of work, introduced six months before the incident, that directly caused the risk," HSE inspector Frances Bailey, who investigated the case, told SHP.
Pall-Ex said in mitigation that all its forklift drivers were trained and competent, it had cooperated with the HSE on its previous visits, but had not realised the consequences of the new system, it had left it up to the drivers to supervise the unloading, and there had been no deliberate or wilful ignoring of advice.
Judge Bennett rejected the company's suggestion that it had been human error on the driver's part, saying "This incident occurred because the company operated an unsafe system of work. The unintended effect of making drivers work faster than it was safe to do so endangered the lives of drivers and employees. It was a tragic and wholly unnecessary death."
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