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Play safe or pay up, contractors warned
10:12 01 Sep 2005
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Contractors will need to pay greater attention to site conditions following a recent case in which a firm failed to prove negligence on the part of a driver whose dumper truck overturned on its site.
The warning follows a High Court ruling last month, which awarded £185,000 damages to a former Paul John Construction (Leicester) employee.
Sixty-three year-old groundworker Patrick O’Gara injured his hand and wrist when the dumper truck he was driving overturned while he was transporting topsoil on a housebuilding job in 1999.
O’Gara was reversing a dumper up a steep ramp with unprotected edges when one of the front wheels dropped over the edge and the machine tipped over.
Despite his 30 years’ experience as a dumper driver, the company claimed O’Gara caused the accident because he chose the wrong place to turn near the edge of the ramp. The company said he had not looked at where he was placing the wheels and drove into an “observable depression” beside the ramp.
O’Gara brought in engineering witnesses, who said the 3m-wide ramp was too narrow for the 1.8m wide truck, had an unprotected sharp drop, and did not splay out at the mouth.
Deputy High Court Judge Simon Brown QC cleared O’Gara of contributory negligence. He said it would be difficult to see how O’Gara was negligent in not looking forward to see where the nearside front wheel was, when he was looking backwards to see where he was going.
Brown ruled that the mouth of the ramp was unsafe and that Paul John Construction was clearly in breach of its statutory duties under Reg 5(2) of the Construction (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1996. He said it would have been reasonably practical to make the site safe for dumper driving by filling in and levelling the areas to the side of the ramp, or fixing a timber baulk at the edge.
The ruling surprised John Kenny, a plant instructor contracted to the Construction Industry Training Board, who questioned whether the ruling would have been the same if a person had been knocked over by the dumper.
He said: “Dumper drivers are taught to be aware of anybody or anything coming into the operating space.”
The warning follows a High Court ruling last month, which awarded £185,000 damages to a former Paul John Construction (Leicester) employee.
Sixty-three year-old groundworker Patrick O’Gara injured his hand and wrist when the dumper truck he was driving overturned while he was transporting topsoil on a housebuilding job in 1999.
O’Gara was reversing a dumper up a steep ramp with unprotected edges when one of the front wheels dropped over the edge and the machine tipped over.
Despite his 30 years’ experience as a dumper driver, the company claimed O’Gara caused the accident because he chose the wrong place to turn near the edge of the ramp. The company said he had not looked at where he was placing the wheels and drove into an “observable depression” beside the ramp.
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O’Gara brought in engineering witnesses, who said the 3m-wide ramp was too narrow for the 1.8m wide truck, had an unprotected sharp drop, and did not splay out at the mouth.
Deputy High Court Judge Simon Brown QC cleared O’Gara of contributory negligence. He said it would be difficult to see how O’Gara was negligent in not looking forward to see where the nearside front wheel was, when he was looking backwards to see where he was going.
Brown ruled that the mouth of the ramp was unsafe and that Paul John Construction was clearly in breach of its statutory duties under Reg 5(2) of the Construction (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1996. He said it would have been reasonably practical to make the site safe for dumper driving by filling in and levelling the areas to the side of the ramp, or fixing a timber baulk at the edge.
The ruling surprised John Kenny, a plant instructor contracted to the Construction Industry Training Board, who questioned whether the ruling would have been the same if a person had been knocked over by the dumper.
He said: “Dumper drivers are taught to be aware of anybody or anything coming into the operating space.”
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