Page 225 - Xmo Strata - Bulletin Archive

Page 1 of 2

Health, Safety & Environmental Bulletin No 103

S Martin – 21 August 2008

Safe Unloading of Vehicles

In January 2008, we carried out a risk assessment relating to the unloading of vehicles on
site and our findings led to us rewriting our safety method statement / job safety
assessment.

Our investigations revealed that many transport providers do not have safe systems of
work that relate to the unloading of vehicles (because they deem this to be the
responsibility of the recipient, whereas the recipients often don’t provide employees with
a safe system of work because they think it falls under the remit of the haulage specialist).

In 2006/07, The HSE reported the following statistics:-

• 6 people were killed from falls below 2 metres, and 2 deaths occurred as a direct
result of falls from vehicles.

• 2324 people suffered non-fatal major injuries from falls below 2 metres, and 760
major injuries occurred as a result of falling from a vehicle.

• 3125 people suffered injuries that resulted in 3 days or more off work from falls
below 2 metres, and 977 occurred as a result of falling from vehicles.

Despite these alarming statistics it is still commonplace to see people jumping down from
the flatbed of a delivery vehicle, or climbing down using the wheel as a step, with no
documented safe system of work for unloading. In a factory or warehouse environment,
there are many mechanical solutions that can be adopted to reduce the risk, but finding a
solution that is suitable for our needs has taken us six months.

New equipment

I am pleased to confirm that we will now be equipping all teams with portable ladders
developed specifically to clip securely to the bed of delivery vehicles. This comes after
lengthy dialogue with the inventor of the equipment, and subsequently the company
licensed to produce them. The new ladders have already been successfully trialled on a

C:\Users\JMartin\OneDrive - Xmo Strata LTD\Desktop\temp bulletins\Bulletin
Archive\Health, Safety & Environmental Bulletin No 103 - Safe Unloading of vehicles.doc