Quarriers call for safety improvements
The Quarry industry is calling for a host of safety upgrades in all the plant used on its sites.
The drive comes as part of its Hard Target initiative, which aims to halve the number of accidents in quarries and processing sites within five years.
The quarries National Joint Advisory Committee, compromising quarry firms, safety authorities and suppliers, is proposing stringent safety standards for quarry plant in areas from visibility to safe access.
Among the features it wants as standard on machine from telehandlers to dump tricks are emergency exits and ladders, ground level access for all routine maintenance points and the use of seatbelts.
The committee said:” If the safety performance of industry is to improve further it is critical that the design of mobile plant and the related safety features are improved.”
Among its recommendations are: 360 degrees vision at 1 m out by 1 m up; inclined stairways to access the cab and a second means of emergency exit; a visible seatbelt indicator; a back-up circuit to allow the operator to steer the machine to safety in event of engine shutdown and guardrails and non-slip surfaces for any platforms on the machine.
The extent and severity of the proposals has been greeted with alarm from manufacturers, who say that such design changes must go through proper processes of standardisation.
Tim Faithfull, technical spokesman for the Construction Equipment Association, said: “Obviously manufacturers welcome all safety initiatives but design adaptations need to go via the standardisation route.
“If design changes are made, there are a lot of users to consider. Those changes will apply to users not just in quarries but throughout construction not just in the UK either.”
Colin Wood, chief executive of the Construction Plant-hire Association, said:” This can not only apply to new equipment. Our members could not afford to retro-fit all this.”
Poorly maintained seats increase vibration risk
The first new wide scale research into on-site whole body vibration has found that changing operators’ behaviour and a good suspension seat are at the most important factors in reducing exposure.
But researchers for the Silsoe Institute, working for the Health and Safety Commission, warned that many suspension seats will need upgrading well within the lifetime of the plant.
The researchers said: “Test on two forklifts showed that a suspension seat could reduce vertical WBV by as much as 50 percent, whereas a simple cushion seat actually amplified it by 20 percent.
“Maintenance, and particularly the replacement of dampers, is an issue with suspended seats that many machine owners and operators are unaware of.
“The expected operational life of a suspended seat is approximately 4,000 hours, whereas construction machine are expected to achieve 30 to 40,000 operating hours. This begs the question as to how many times a suspension seat is replaced. The answer is probably not very often.”
The research confirmed that most common types of vibration to force operators to work under eight hours a day, although many vibrate enough to need a monitoring regime.
But the extensive testing on typical site machines found that some machines, most notably articulated dump trucks, wheeled loaders and site dumpers, and created vibration risk in certain applications.
Silsoe found high vibrations on site dumpers used over long distances rough roadway. It recommended encouraging drivers “not to be too enthusiastic when driving long distances”.
Silsoe found one of the highest vibration levels on articulated dump trucks. It warned that “operators would approach the exposure limit value during a normal working shift and probably exceed it if working conditions were poor”. It stressed that good operating practice and properly maintained haul roads were important.
The researchers also concluded that cabs on wheeled loaders and face shovels should be fitted with vibration damping to reduce the fore and aft shocks when driving the bucket into stockpiles.
Targets missed
The health and safety Executive has confirmed that construction has not met targets set at safety summit in February 2001. Targets were to cut the annual death toll 40 per cent by 2004-05 and 60 per cent by 2010. The industry missed the 2004-05 targets by 25 percent
The health and safety Executive has confirmed that construction has not met targets set at safety summit in February 2001. Targets were to cut the annual death toll 40 per cent by 2004-05 and 60 per cent by 2010. The industry missed the 2004-05 targets by 25 percent
HSE Press Briefing on Telehandlers
MORE DETAILED INFORMATION FOR JOURNALISTS ON TELEHANDLERS
IN THE CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY
WHAT IS THE DANGER?
1. The danger being highlighted in this press release is that of pedestrians being struck by the vehicle when the driver has impaired visibility while travelling on traffic routes and open areas, and while manoeuvring or starting to move from stationary in areas where pedestrians can be present (see attached photograph). Visibility is limited by the shape of the machine itself, and this can be made worse by the load being carried and the layout of the site on which it is operating.
RECENT ACCIDENT HISTORY
2. In 2004/05 there was one fatal accident involving a pedestrian being struck by a telehandler on a construction site, and there was a second such fatality in 2003/04. In addition, there was a fatality in the waste industry in 2003/04 where a worker was struck by a reversing telehandler. Out of these 3 fatalities, 2 were during reversing and one was during forward travel.
CE MARKING
3. Telehandlers are typically designed to BS EN 1459:1998, and this Standard requires compliance with a further international Standard that deals specifically with driver visibility (ISOIDIS 13564). Telehandlers with the type of driver blind spots described above can still comply with these Standards, so
legitimately CE marked machines may still pose these risks.
IS THERE A PROBLEM?
4. Construction contractors can assess the risk by asking the following questions:
(a) Are they confident that their pedestrian/traffic route segregation arrangements will keep pedestrians out of the vicinity of vehicle movements?
(b) Have they designed the transport routes and tasks so as to eliminate reversing to the greatest extent possible, and identified where dangers remain when trucks are travelling, manoeuvring and regularly starting up from stationary positions (laden and unladen)?
(c) Have they chosen the right type of mobile plant to work on this site (size and capacity in relation to access routes) and do they know enough about what the driver can and can’t see when operating it?
(d) Have site and visiting personnel been instructed/trained in the site rules associated with vehicle movements and do they know how to protect themselves if it is necessary for them to work in the vicinity of telehandlers?
5. Remember that a trained and competent driver cannot be expected to fully compensate for any difficulties identified in the four assessment questions posed above.
INTERIM MEASURES
6. There are a number of interim measures that can be taken, either singly or in combination, and the nature of the site is likely to determine which is the optional solution in any specific instance. It should also be noted that none of the suggested measures are necessarily comprehensive, and some residual risks may remain.
7. Possible interim measures (in no particular order) would be:
(a) to improve the safety of the site itself through improvements in traffic routes, pedestrian segregation, elimination of reversing, etc;
(b) to change other operating parameters (such as delivery and loading points);
(c) to consider the choice or mix of plant used, and
(d) to provide additional visibility aids as necessary (such as mirrors or CCTV) on the telehandler and / or at areas of restricted visibility.
8. When considering the last two possible measures (7(c) and 7(d)) in relation to the telehandlers themselves, you are strongly advised to consult the hirers, suppliers and/or manufacturers of the plant concerned.
HSE INVOLVEMENT WITH MANUFACTURERS, SUPPLIERS AND STANDARDS MAKERS
9. HSE has informed the most relevant Trade Association and all known UK-based manufacturers and suppliers of these machines about its concerns. The British Industrial Truck Association (BIT A), HSE and suppliers are actively involved in negotiating improvements in the design standards for telehandlers and driver visibility, and are conducting joint research on the suitability and use of visibility aids.
HSE CONTACTS
10. Technical issues arising from manufacturers and/or suppliers, or advice on safe use, should be directed to Gil Male on 0151 951 4034 or via gil.male@hse.gsi.gov.uk
11. Advice on legal aspects or more general queries can be directed to Mark Hatfield on 0113 283 4368 or via mark.hatfield@hse.gsi.gov.uk
UK TRADE ASSOCIATION CONTACTS
12. The most relevant UK Trade Association for suppliers/manufacturers of telehandlers is BITA – the British Industrial Trucks Association, Tel. 01344 623800, email info@bita.org.uk
13. However, BITA should not be contacted for advice on individual machines. Construction contractors should contact the relevant manufacturer/supplier.
Visionary service
Over the last decade, plant makers have commendably made great strides in providing the operators of their creations with ever better
visibility. But there can still be blind spots beside and behind many machines and these could result in potentially serious accidents on site.
In recent years, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has expressed particular concern about the number of personal injury accidents caused by reversing plant. It particularly highlighted problems associated with dumptrucks in quarries and telehandlers on construction sites. The use of CCTV has been officially adopted as the solution to the former situation whilst, increasingly, the fitment of extra mirrors has been seen as providing a suitable ‘cure’ in the latter case.
Given the raft of legislation and standards that now seem to affect machine visibility issues, it is not always as easy as it should be to work out what might need to be done to make improvements to specific machines. But one company has made a name for itself as a special provider of visibility assessments and the means to minimise any blind spots thereby identified.
Plant consultancy
The company in question is Spillard Safety Systems Ltd of Gailey in Staffordshire whose somewhat accidental entry into this sector began back in the early 1990s. Founder Vic Spillard used his extensive plant knowl¬edge to carry out consultancy work and a safety project Wimpey Mining led to trials of both reversing cameras and convex mirrors on large dumptrucks.
Interest in reversing aids increased and, after Vic’s son Pete joined the business, an official launch of Spillard’s new AIIRoundVision range took place at the Hillhead Quarry Plant Exhibition in 1995. Subsequently, increased HSE interest in the fitting of convex mirrors prompted Spillard’s to review its product range.
The product now sold by Spillard stems from a sighting by Pete of a convex mirror on a yellow school bus in New York during a visit in 1998. The mirror’s maker was a company called Mirrorlite and having decided the product provided better vision, Spillard became the European importer.
The latest generation of AIIRoundVision mirrors from Spillard is made from aluminiumised vacuum coated shatterproof acrylic with an abrasion resistant coating. These mirrors utilise a non-uniform radius profile designed to maximise the field of view whilst minimising distortion.
The range of AIIRoundVision convex mirrors includes oval elliptical and quad ra-spherical designs for mounting in a variety of different positions on machines. Mirrors can be supplied with integrated heaters so that vision can be maintained during icy weather.
Spillards move into fitting its AIIRoundVision convex mirrors to telehandlers came through Wimpey Homes. And, as other prominent telescopic handler users sought to minimise the risks of using these popular machines on congested sites, Spillards pioneering work paid dividends and it gained a significant slice of the increasing market for extra mirrors.
Exhibition boost
The growth in extra mirrors being fitted onto telehandlers was fuelled by the HSE taking a specific interest in these machines following a survey it made of forklift accidents in the period 1997-2001. Subsequently, the HSE showed Spillard mirrors at an SED exhibition as an example of one way of improving all-round visibility and thereby reducing the risk of people being struck by the machines.
Spillard Safety Systems also used shows like SED to promote not only the features of its mirrors but also its ability to carry out site assessments of specific machines. Pete Spillard and his team have utilised their in-depth practical knowledge to provide visibility risk assessments and to advise how additional mirrors might reduce any blind spots which might be discovered.
To see how this service works in practice, I travelled to a Fairclough Homes site near Bradford to witness a demonstration of a visibility assessment on a telehandler hired in from Flannery Forktrucks. Safety is a very important issue for both Fairclough Homes and its telehandler supplier. They have clearly welcomed the ability of Spillard Safety Systems to conduct visibility risk assessments and advise on the fitting of extra mirrors.
Top priorities
The safety department of Fairclough Homes has now worked with Spillard Safety systems for over three years and it calls in Pete Spillard to carry out a visibility risk assessment every time a new type of telehandler is hired in. Flannery Forktrucks is pleased to accept Spillard’s recommendations as its brochure states that “reverse waning and rear vision are both top priorities.’
General Manger Andrew Gaunt of Flannery Forktrucks says that all our telehandlers are fitted with high visibility chevrons, AIIRoundVision mirrors and backup warning alarms. This combination of features is a major factor in reducing on-site accidents.”
The machine, which came under the scrutiny of Pete Spillard and his colleague Peter Welsh for my benefit, was a modern JCB 532-120. This side-engined, low boom design is typical of the machines used on many sites these days. According to Pete Spillard, all have some visibility blind spots which can be reduced by the strategic use of extra convex mirrors.
To carry out his tests, Pete Spillard assesses how easy it is for him to see a 1.0m high object moved around whilst he sits in the operator’s seat (whilst wearing the seat belt). He is 1.85m high and he conducts all the visual sight tests himself so as to maintain consistency of testing.
The use of a 1.0m high object stems from the 1.0m by 1.0m visibility recommendation increasingly being applied to construction equipment. The HSE appears to be endorsing this criterion in quarries for its Quarry Fact File dated June 2005 states, “Convex mirrors and CCTV should be fitted to all quarry earthmoving vehicles so that the drive can see 1.0m out and 1.0m up all around the vehicle.” This recommendation has apparently been adopted by the HSE backed Quarries National Joint Advisory Committee (QNJAC).
The HSE also appears to be promoting the 1 m by 1 m rule of thumb for telehandlers used on construction sites. After I asked for telehandler visibility requirements on the HSE stand at the Saltex exhibition on the 6th September, I was told I would be sent the information as a matter of priority. What arrived on the 12th October form the Basingstoke office of the HSE was a paper dated 20th November 2003 which states that it “addresses the current position concerning driver visibility of earthmoving equipment lift trucks and describes HSE activity.”
This HSE paper states that the appropriate safe management of site transport is deemed to be a key requirement to ensure a safe site. Published guidance is provided by HSG 144 ‘safe use of vehicles on construction sites.’ As a rough ‘rule of thumb’, driver vision should be 1.0×1.0m around a machine where there is a risk from inadequate driver vision (i.e. the driver should be able to see points that are one metre from the vehicle and one metre above ground level, subject to the ‘risk’ caveat).
So, with the machine’s forks placed 500mm above the ground, Pete Welsh used a large 1.0m high yellow cone to map out the positions from which its top could be seen by Pete Spillard from the operator’s seat. This data is used by Spillard Safety Systems to provide a computer generated plant view of the machine as a Machine Visibility Diagram with the area of blind spot highlighted in purple.
The Spillard team then proceeded to fit the telehandler with one of their oval elliptical mirrors on the existing bracket on the front offside of the machine and a quadra-spherical mirror on a bracket at the rear. Rather than being a full convex mirror, this quarda-spherical design has been produced specially to reduce glare from the sun and from the strobe type beacons increasingly being fitted to construction plant.
Once the mirrors were in place they were then adjusted using the yellow cone to minimise the blind spots. The improved area of vision can be seen from the resulting green coloured areas on the accompanying Machine Visibility Diagram.
The green shading reveals a significant improvement and, as can be seen from the free database of other visibility assessments on the Spillard website (www.allroundvision.com) it is typical of what can be achieved with many other makers and models of telehandler. However, it should be noted that the front offside mirror bracket on this particular telehandler was slightly bent so these are not the optimum results for this type of machine.
Free Metre Stick
To help telehandler owners and users make their own initial visibility assessments, Spillard Safety Systems can provide a free Metre Stick. This Stick can give an indication of the need for extra visibility aids and/or the effectiveness of existing mirrors.
Pete Spillard says these additional mirrors provide a cost effective way of reducing the blind spots associated with modern telehandlers of whatever make. He accepts that ‘mirrors are not the be all and end all solution to enhanced driver visibility and he accepts that in some instances – on the rear of zero tail swing excavators for example, they are not needed.
He also accepts that vibration can serve to blur an image but because all site workers should be wearing high viz jackets it should be possible to spot them. “You don’t need to recognise a guy to see he is there!”
The HSE has recently again highlighted the dangers of pedestrians on construction sites and waste handling areas being stuck and killed by telehandlers. Whilst still advocating the provision of additional visibility aids such as mirrors as one way to improve telehandler safety, the HSE is still calling for more research into their suitability. This work needs to be given high priority so that machine makers and users can be given unequivocal guidance in this live threatening matter.
Meanwhile, Spillard Safety Systems continues to be proactive. It can now assume complete legal responsibility for a customer’s machine visibility assessments by signing off the whole package.
Recognition for leaders in health and safety
UK quarry companies gathered in London last month to hear who had scooped the top prizes in the Quarry Products Association’s Health and Safety Best Practice Awards. From 143 initial entries, a final tally of 44 award-winners across eight categories lined up alongside the winners of three unique awards for 2005.
Read more
Safety Assessment
www.safed.co.uk
The Safety Assessment Federation (SAFed) has launched its new-look web for all those concerned with health and safety, particularly in the workplace. New to the site is a public information page, with free guidance documents, and a FAQ page. The publications page has been updated with the latest SAFed publications on industry guidance and best practice. The site also provides useful links to recognized organizations such as HSE, BSi dti, RoSPA and UKAS, as well as links to the relevant legislation.
Imerys’ Blackpool Pit scoops top RoSPA award
Staff at Imerys’ Blackpool Pit have good cause to celebrate after their site was recently judged to be the safest quarry in the country by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA).
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SPILLARD MULTI-CAMERA VISIBILITY SYSTEM CHOSEN FOR PORT RE-HANDLING APPLICATION
A 100 tonne class Sennebogen 870M Special re-handling machine, recently supplied to Sussex Port Forwarding’s Shoreham facility by E.H. Hassell & Sons, has been equipped with a four camera visibility system by Spillard Safety Systems of Gailey in Staffordshire to ensure maximum operating safety.
The wheel-mounted 870M is being used to unload mainly timber at a rate of some 350,000 cu m per annum plus some bulk materials when the lifting hook attachment is switched to a 4 cu m capacity clamshell bucket. Having replaced old, rope-operated cranes, the new machine has been chosen to provide greater flexibility of operation and faster ship turnaround.
The Spillard equipment selected for this application consists of two colour cameras magnetically mounted to each side of the re-handler’s 11 m long dipper arm, one beneath the elevating ‘skylift’ cab structure and one mounted at the rear of the machine. The cameras are coupled to a pair of 7” colour monitors mounted one above the other in the cab with handy rocker switches to allow the operator to choose any combination of views.
These views not only help the operator to position the boom accurately when picking up loads from within the holds of ships but also enable maximum operating safety by providing a wide angle of visibility around the whole machine.
According to Alan Motterham, general manager at Shoreham Port, “The views the operator has on the monitors is so good he can almost drive the machine without looking out of the cab windows!”
SPILLARD SAFETY EQUIPMENT CHOSEN TO PROTECT PEDESTRIANS FROM MOBILE PLANT ON METAL RECYCLING SITES
European Metal Recycling (EMR) is working closely with Spillard Safety Systems to ensure its extensive fleet of mobile plant across 60 UK depots is fitted with the necessary equipment to provide the operators with all round vision.
Privately owned EMR, which has an annual turnover of some £3/4B, is extremely keen to provide a safe environment for pedestrians at all its sites where old cars, washing machines and a wide variety of other steels are shredded and separated prior to shipment – principally to China.
With large numbers of vehicles entering and leaving each site on a daily basis, the possibility of an accident is ever-present. Therefore, in conjunction with specialists from Staffordshire based Spillard Safety Systems, site visibility surveys are being carried out at every EMR location to ascertain which combination of convex mirrors and Optronics rear view camera systems is required for each item of mobile plant to ensure the required level of operator visibility.
For example, at the 26 acre Newmarket depot in Suffolk where some 1000 tonne of scrap metal is processed every day, a total of eight colour camera/monitor systems have been installed covering a pair of JCB Telehandlers, five Liebherr material handlers and a Volvo wheeled loader.
According to Danny Swygart, EMR’s health, safety and environment co-ordinator for the SE region: “As we wish to ensure complete safety for pedestrians on all our sites, the Group standard for mobile plant now includes a requirement for all round vision equipment to be fitted, based on the recommendations resulting from the site surveys.” Mr. Swygart continues, “We have found the cameras and mirrors supplied by Spillards to be of a high quality and able to withstand the rigours of our harsh environment.”