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'AIMS' Seminar on Vehicle Safety

The planned half-day seminar on vehicle safety took place on 24 March 2010.

Nina Day of the Health & Safety Laboratory, who has become an expert in this field, spoke on ‘Moving Goods Safely', particularly with respect to safe loading and unloading, and prevention of load shifting whilst in transit.

Trevor Smith of Alcoa followed this with an update on their activities in introducing best practice to safe vehicle access and prevention of falls from vehicles.

Chris Roberts of Blackburns Metals shared their experience of introducing a Driver Handbook and related actions in respect of vehicle-related risks.

Michael Bone concluded with a summary of the rationale behind HSE's focus on vehicle safety. It is a simple fact that vehicle-related accidents are the most likely cause of an employee being killed or seriously injured at work. Prevention is clearly the best approach, and plenty of good advice is available via their website http://www.hse.gov.uk/ , searching for terms such as ‘workplace transport', ‘load security'' or ‘road haulage'.

The event was well attended and the feedback from those delegates was overwhelmingly positive.

If you would like a copy of the full Proceedings on one CD-Rom please contact Ann Gough on 0121 601 6365 or email a_gough@alfed.org.uk - there will be a small charge for this CD.

We plan to organise further seminars, with another possibly later this year. You are encouraged to suggest topics that this might cover, and also urged to send delegates to take advantage of this tailored but low-cost means of sharing knowledge.

Please send us any subjects that you may wish to be included at a future seminar or at the 2011 Health and Safety Workshop.