DrivingMissDaisy:
So many things wrong there but I can’t help thinking the driver was a major factor in this accident.
That really depends on the circumstances, I assume the driver got out to open the doors of the truck if when he did this the bloke was in the area, then maybe he should have kept an eye on him and when he got back on the cab wonder where he’d gone.
But if the bloke walked into the area from the other side of the truck, as the driver was returning to the cab to back up, he might never have seen him as when he got into the truck he could have then been in the blind spot behind the trailer.
The real major factor in this accident was the bloke himself, not being aware of his surroundings and what was going on in an area that has moving vehicles.
The company had procedures to deal with this, but to be effective it had to be policed by the staff, who probably had better things to do and might have been sick of telling people to use walkways only to be ignored because they knew better and didn’t want to go the long way.
I like many other on here don’t like some of the stupid health and safety regs, normally driven by insurance companies fear of Ambulance chasing No Win, No Fee Companies.
But keeping people away from moving vehicles, especially large vehicles reversing, doesn’t seem a bad idea. Even if you’re aware of the dangers, almost all of us are human and we can be distracted, it could be something as stupid as being aware of one vehicle that focuses our attention and then we are less aware of another danger.
Contraflow:
FarnboroughBoy11:
^^^^^^^ wow, 3 in a row in agreement. Cheers boys 
I think that automatically makes you a knight! Congratulations Sir FarnboroughBoy11 of TruckNet.
Thank you, i dont have a speech prepared because it was so unexpected, but I would like to thank everyone who has supported me through out this entire investigation.
Hang on,
Don’t know if you guys do it but before I back on to a bay I have a look. I then back halfway down and then do the doors. To checks then and then on to the bay. I do that because this sort of incident is pictured in my head every time i go around the back of the lorry thinking it is going to roll back 
It’s not possible to tell from the video whether or not the driver did all he should have, but it’s painfully clear that the plumber was in a work area and completely oblivious to what was going on around him.
Any work area is a potentially dangerous place to people who take their safety for granted.
Perhaps it would have made more sense to fine the plumber rather than the company 
Wonder if the rubber stoppers saved his life, they are not intended for that purpose rather for preventing damage.
merc0447:
Wonder if the rubber stoppers saved his life, they are not intended for that purpose rather for preventing damage.
I wondered that to, can’t really tell from the video though can you, either way he was very lucky 
Good job it wasn’t one of those bays that are now so common over here, with the retaining hook that comes up over the trailer bumper that you have to push back on with quite some force at times to make the unit slide down far enough to allow your trailer to come back far enough to touch the loading dock. Quite often with those, if they’re stiff or the the hook unit it sitting hight, you come up against them and then have to try a second time with more power to make them shift downwards. I doubt any of us, sitting all that way forward in the cab could tell the difference between the feeling of that, and a human body standing in the way.
maestegboy:
The company could have fitted reversing camera,alarms etc there could have been a banksman watching all reversing at premises,there will always be accidents,i know zb happens
If the vehicle had all the legally required safety fitments then your point is mute. If it didn’t then the driver is at fault for taking it out.
Operators cant keep spending thousands of pounds every time some numpty puts himself in a dangerous position. If this case caused a judgement that all LGVs should have cameras it could put some hauliers out of business. Could you imagine the bill of fitting cameras to 100+ units and say 500 trailers?
If the driver was reversing, and had the unit bent in one direction as the pillock walked in from the other, there is no reason that the driver could be held accountable. The owner of the warehouse could be for allowing customers to park and then walk across the loading bay to the trade counter. That is the breach of safety and that should be punished.
Definatey think the driver has to take some credit here, watching the video again the point of impact on the bay was so gentle the rubber bumpers (well nearside one) pushed the truck forward again. If the driver had hit it hard the plumber would have stood no chance and been lucky to survive but unlikely to be able to walk again.
All the sites we visit can have H & S coming out their arses but in the end its down to us to make an allowance for that extrordinary situation when the company has failed to meet its obligation or a site visitor is lets say (and I’m being kind) a little unaware of the dangers around them.
Visited 2 RDC’s today and since seeing this video I made sure the reversing bleeper was on (even if one was stupid o’clock) and I took it slow although thats not unusual as my reversing efforts today where shocking. 
No1 hes not wearing hi viz
No2 hes in a commercial loading area/Bay
No3 hes that engrossed in his paperwork he cant see /hear a truck coming
am assuming there is no traffic lights on the bay witch in its self is bad practice but not illegal.
In a ideal world we would all have reversing cameras. Our mob fitted them as we do shop delivery s and as quick as hou have walked from the back door to the cab a motor/van would park behind you and you jump into the cab put it in reverse and bang there vech!
Ins claims went down massively after fitting.
tachograph:
It’s not possible to tell from the video whether or not the driver did all he should have, but it’s painfully clear that the plumber was in a work area and completely oblivious to what was going on around him.
Any work area is a potentially dangerous place to people who take their safety for granted.
Perhaps it would have made more sense to fine the plumber rather than the company
I find it ridiculous that there’s this idea the companies can foresee and prevent anything an idiot might do and get a massive fine if they don’t. There’s loads of level crossings that are either pedestrian ones with gates or road ones where a barrier comes down on one side of the carriageway and you could drive round. Network rail never gets fined for not doing enough to prevent idiots getting on the railway lines.
Own Account Driver:
I find it ridiculous that there’s this idea the companies can foresee and prevent anything an idiot might do and get a massive fine if they don’t. There’s loads of level crossings that are either pedestrian ones with gates or road ones where a barrier comes down on one side of the carriageway and you could drive round. Network rail never gets fined for not doing enough to prevent idiots getting on the railway lines.
The HSE would expect such barriers, however unrealistic to the day to day running of a warehouse, to be put in place to stop people wandering about getting in to this sort of bother, but in doing so in reality it would also prevent people who should be there, such as truck drivers, from being there and doing their own job.
Perhaps all loading docks should be bricked up, all gates padlocked, all companies shut down, every one made redundant and be have done with it, there is no way in my opinion that you can prevent or pre-empt the individual actions and decisions made by somebody else in that sort of environment. Putting up fences, obstacles and whatever else to prevent plumbers accessing loading docks is just going to prevent other workers from doing what they’re supposed to be doing.
This is Britain at its very worst. It always makes me laugh when this sort of crap is as a result of so called “American compensation culture”…I’m in America every week and its not even in the same league as the UK for H&S. I hardly ever have to wear a vis-vest, I’ve had to wear safety boots half a dozen times in five years, no handing in of keys, no sitting in waiting rooms. The only common sign to see on shipping/receiving doors here are the ones telling drivers not to bring guns inside the building. Despite all this lack of H&S here, people dont seem to be dying and getting caught between trucks and loading docks like they do in obsessive compulsive disorder Britain.
H&S has taken off from its original purpose of providing basic measures to protect all, to becoming the vast self serving industry that it now is, who just like Vosa and such bodies, have to continually justify their existence by promoting all sorts of new things as threats that need regulating, thus providing more money and jobs for the boys at the HSE in this never ending cycle of taking money from an ever shrinking private commercial base to fund the ever growing government quango’s and agencies.
There comes a time when all of us as individuals have to be accountable for our own behaviour. You would not expect to be run over whilst walking down a footpath, because footpaths are there for the use of pedestrians, however you would expect such a danger to exist on the road, so you’d check before walking out, because common sense tells you that roads are for vehicles, thats why they were built, and as such vehicles will be on them. Loading docks where built for one purpose and one purpose only, they are not air vents, they are not service counters for all your plumbing needs, they are built for the sole purpose of having trucks back on to them, so why would it come as a shock to any one that a truck would back on to such a structure, even to the extent that further measures need to be taken to prevent idiots wandering in off the street, getting stuck between said truck and loading dock. No, the only measures we need are not more H&S bureaucracy or fines, we need to get it through some peoples thick heads that going around, acting like a moron in cloud cuckoo land is not a good idea and if you choose to do so, you are responsible for your own downfall.
If a person cannot be bothered to look before walking on to a road, or would simply fall off a harbour front because a piece of fence was missing, or drive down a railway track because their satnav told them too, then they should simply stay at home or locked up because those people are the real dangers to the rest of us, not the other way around.
Actually robinhood I think you miss the main reason why the H &S culture has taken over in the UK to such an extent. It’s not the HSE, most of their advice is reasonably straight forward, they also rarely visit sites and don’t prosecute that many companies.
The real reason is the No Win No Fee companies and the fact that insurance companies decide it’s cheaper and easier to settle out of court and put the premiums up than take these claims to court and challenge them.
At least these spongers didn’t get away with it Barbara Fari sentenced to jail over £750,000 claim - BBC News 
If I’d have been the driver, I’d have ‘backed off a bit’ to allow the knob stood on the bay to go about his business as he had ‘time critical’ paperwork to deal with. Driver error all the way that…case closed. And with reference to reversing ‘beepers’ being used at ‘stupid oclock’…they fall under the same rules as a horn and should not be used between the hours of 11pm/7am so…nah, CBA
It’s the usual: if there’s blame, there’s a claim. H&S is about sensibly reducing the chances of something bad happening as much as possible. This often has the effect of making a good outcome a bit more difficult being a bit of a pain, but overall, in the long term it’s beneficial. Also, in the OP, if just one of the parties had taken extra care, i.e. warehouse staff told the plumber to move it, or had the plumber or driver perhaps been not so complacent, then there would have been no interesting video to such a fortuitous and salutary experience.
Video of Mr Atherton (the almost squashed plumber) talking to BBC News here -
Snudger:
…if there’s blame, there’s a claim.
His teeth do look nice and white in the video above.
javiatrix, take your dog out with hi viz on do ya mm, if plumber was legally there it would have been coned off you fool give us your reg i will jump in front of you and it will obviously be your fault eh
