Lawford Kidd's Blog

A worker from County Durham had his hand severed while carrying out maintenance on glass cutting machinery a court heard.

The 34-year-old maintenance technician was investigating a fault on a new tilt table with a colleague. He  was on his hands and knees while trying to ascertain the cause of the fault and had activated the emergency stop.

Suspended above his right wrist was a large laminated glass sheet measuring six metres by three metres and weighing around almost a ton. The worker had his right arm extended with a mirror in his hand so he could check the status of a sensor relating to the release of the glass onto the table.

In the run up to the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, the Institute of Advanced Motorists (IAM) has taken a look back over how roads and road safety have changed since the Queen came to the throne sixty years ago.

Key developments include:

• Since 1952, over 313,000 people have died on UK roads.
• The good news is that the number of road victims is on the decrease. In 1952, 13 people a day died on our roads, compared to five a day now. When increased vehicle numbers are taken into account, roads are actually six times safer.
• Today’s roads would be beyond recognition to drivers in 1952. Vehicle numbers have steadily increased from four million to 34 million in the last 60 years.
• Many important road safety laws have been brought in during the Queen’s reign, including the MOT test, drink drive limit, and compulsory seatbelt and motorcycle helmet wearing.

IAM chief executive Simon Best said: “Road safety gets better by the year, and the technology of roads and cars improves all the time.

A waste management and recycling company has been fined for safety failings after a worker lost most of his arm on an unguarded conveyor system at a Kent quarry.

Dartford Magistrates heard that a conveyor belt used to transfer waste into a sorting shed was juddering and virbrating, making sorting difficult, after a driving roller was blocked by stones.

Agency employee Vladislavs Golovacs should have stopped the machine before removing the debris. Instead he removed the stones with the power still running and his left arm became trapped and was torn with extreme force.

A builder has pleaded guilty to a contravention of Sections 3 and 33 (1) of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 at Haddington Sheriff Court, and was fined £15,000.

The builder had been contracted to rebuild the chimney on a property in Gifford but failed to ensure that it was fully cleared of any debris and masonry materials that had fallen in. The chimney was therefore still blocked when the family who lived there used the fire in the living room.

The blockage impeded the combustion process of the solid fuel fireplace, and caused the fumes from the fireplace to build up, causing an accumulation of carbon monoxide to which the three occupants of the house were exposed. A 60-year-old woman died as a result of the exposure.

A farm company in Northern Ireland (NI) has been fined a record £187,500, plus £13,000 costs for health and safety failings that led to the death of 45-year-old employee Robert Wilson.

The company is the first in Northern Ireland to be convicted under new Corporate Manslaughter legislation. Under this legislation, companies and organisations can be found guilty as a result of serious management failures resulting in a gross breach of a duty of care.

Mr Wilson, who was working at the meal-mixing plant on the farm, was killed after being struck by a metal bin which fell off a forklift. The forklift was being driven by one of the company directors. The investigation revealed that the bin had not been attached or integrated with the forklift. It was also revealed that it was not possible to insert the lifting forks into the sleeves of the bin as the forks were too large and incorrectly spaced.