Lorry driver seeks High Court damages of more than £300,000

elystandard.co.uk/news/fenla … -1-5320189

Stupidity of the highest degree. “Accuses his employers of negligence and claims they failed to assess risks from overhead power lines”. The risk is more than obvious you plumb.

harrawaffa:
http://www.elystandard.co.uk/news/fenland-lorry-driver-in-compensation-bid-following-electrocution-1-5320189

Stupidity of the highest degree. “Accuses his employers of negligence and claims they failed to assess risks from overhead power lines”. The risk is more than obvious you plumb.

Agree. Would he have raised his tipper if he had been parked under a bridge? Sad, sorry for him but there is a thing called contributory negligence.

Hankins fault entirely, im sure they also told him to empty the crap out in the layby… :unamused:

AndrewG:
Hankins fault entirely, im sure they also told him to empty the crap out in the layby… :unamused:

But the article says:

The writ says that after he had to be airlifted to hospital after tipping his lorry’s trailer in a lay-by in Block Fen Drove to clear out any grain left in it before collecting aggregate from Bardon Aggregates in the same road. … [the employer] failed to have a safe system of cleaning out trailers between loads … [and is accused of] failing to heed an incident involving another driver when a tipping trailer contacted overhead power lines

Even if it is attributable to mistakes or oversights of the employee, it is the employing organisation that bears the risk of mistakes and oversights, having put the employee about a task where small oversights can have grave consequences and having determined the constraints and terms under which the task is done (including those constraints and terms which have a bearing on the safety of the activity).

If the bosses had made provision for emptying out the crap properly and safely in a dedicated area on a proper work site, with no undue time pressure arising due to tight schedules or excessive working hours, and the employee had defied it and chose to dump it down a back lane instead, this case wouldn’t have a leg to stand on, but that’s unlikely to be the situation.

Employees who work under a responsible culture, and who have a proper means of disposal provided, don’t just dump things at the side of the road down back lanes - because if nothing else, in a responsible workplace, someone (whether it be bosses or workmates) would be accustomed to the routine of disposal being followed, and if there was no evidence of the employee having been to an appropriate place, would ask the question “where the hell did you put the waste between those two jobs?”.

OLD school and British

Driver could be prosecuted for fly tipping.

There is not a grain of truth in this story

biggriffin:
Driver could be prosecuted for fly tipping.

Cross out could and read should. Same for the company.

That’s the way to do it

Wheel Nut:
There is not a grain of truth in this story

It’s shocking isn’t it.

So because his company didn’t show him the risks of raising a tipper under power lines, it is their fault…

There you have the reason why we are buried under H+S bulldust everyday…

Why don’t they make sure it’s empty before they leave the site they are tipping at

Its the type of job that separates the Wheat from the chaff.

chester1:
Why don’t they make sure it’s empty before they leave the site they are tipping at

Now theres an idea… :bulb:

Rjan:

AndrewG:
Hankins fault entirely, im sure they also told him to empty the crap out in the layby… :unamused:

But the article says:

The writ says that after he had to be airlifted to hospital after tipping his lorry’s trailer in a lay-by in Block Fen Drove to clear out any grain left in it before collecting aggregate from Bardon Aggregates in the same road. … [the employer] failed to have a safe system of cleaning out trailers between loads … [and is accused of] failing to heed an incident involving another driver when a tipping trailer contacted overhead power lines

Even if it is attributable to mistakes or oversights of the employee, it is the employing organisation that bears the risk of mistakes and oversights, having put the employee about a task where small oversights can have grave consequences and having determined the constraints and terms under which the task is done (including those constraints and terms which have a bearing on the safety of the activity).

If the bosses had made provision for emptying out the crap properly and safely in a dedicated area on a proper work site, with no undue time pressure arising due to tight schedules or excessive working hours, and the employee had defied it and chose to dump it down a back lane instead, this case wouldn’t have a leg to stand on, but that’s unlikely to be the situation.

Employees who work under a responsible culture, and who have a proper means of disposal provided, don’t just dump things at the side of the road down back lanes - because if nothing else, in a responsible workplace, someone (whether it be bosses or workmates) would be accustomed to the routine of disposal being followed, and if there was no evidence of the employee having been to an appropriate place, would ask the question “where the hell did you put the waste between those two jobs?”.

Agreed the company is negligent and should have had a better system of emptying trailers.
But are you saying as workers we have no personal responsibility for checking the area where we work is safe regardless of what our boss says, or are we just supposed to be automatons and do exactly as our bosses say regardless of the obvious dangers?

I thought one of the basics of tipping a trailer was checking for overhead obstructions or power lines.

PS if you fail to reply in 100 words or less, I’ll ignore the guff you write and assume you haven’t got a clue.

Bone idle

ABSOLUTLY SHOCKING !!!

Wheel Nut:

That’s the way to do it

I like the yellow one :wink:

All that empty road to dump his waste onto and he raises the tipper body directly underneath the crossing power lines, that’s a special kind of stupid.
When the medics said they thought he was dead I think they meant brain dead!

When this accident happened the Health & Safety Executive would have been all over the accident site and the haulage company like a rash. The assumption is that this claim has arisen from their findings:

The writ accuses his employers of negligence and claims they failed to assess risks from overhead power lines, failed to give him enough information over working near overhead power lines, and failed to have a safe system of cleaning out trailers between loads.
The company is also accused of failing to have a safe procedure for site risk assessment before tipping, a safe system for tipping including the need to remain inside the cab

If this writ has the HSE report as its basis then Hankins have a lot of questions to answer and this claim could be just the beginning of their problems.