All businesses should control the risk to workers and bystanders of getting hurt in the workplace.
If something does go wrong, a regulator or a prosecutor is likely to ask what you did to control the specific risk.
Here are some simple suggestions about how to control risk, whether it is in your workshop, when operating a truck, or when you design a modification to a heavy vehicle.
Firstly, a heavy road vehicle is an item of plant equipment under state and national Occupational Health and Safety (OH&S) Regulations.
The road vehicle was originally designed and manufactured to comply with the Australian Design Rules (ADRs), but they are not an all-encompassing set of safety standards. Compliance with them is necessary but not sufficient.
A heavy vehicle is both a workplace and an item of plant equipment. OH&S Regulations require that the hazards that can arise in a workplace be identified and the risk that the hazard will occur be controlled.
To do that the supplier and owner of the workplace should periodically conduct a hazard and risk assessment, document the findings and act to keep all risks Low or preferably Very Low. Here is some guidance about how to conduct a useful Hazard and Risk Assessment.
There are six questions that guide the assessment:
•Realistically, what could go wrong? This is the hazard.
•Under what circumstances could the hazard occur?
•Is the exposure to the hazard conditions continuous or occasional?
•What is stopping the hazard from occurring and how reliable are these controls?
•How many independent, reliable controls exist to stop the hazard from occurring?
•If the hazard arises when something breaks, why would it break?
The result that comes from answering these questions is called the Risk. Most assessment tools classify Risk as either High, Moderate or Low. My approach also has Extreme and Very Low.
I put answers to these questions into a spreadsheet.
Figure 1 shows an example applicable to the ‘working conditions and posture hazards’ in a mechanical workshop. This spreadsheet version requires numerical answers, and it then calculates a risk number and makes the Risk Assessment according to a scale that is based upon the numerical answers.
Hazards are relatively easy to identify. They follow from classifications such as ‘working with electricity’, ‘working with cutting machines’, ‘working with ladders’ etc. Figuring out what is stopping the hazard occurring takes some thought but is an essential consideration.
These considerations should be documented in the spreadsheet. The spreadsheet should also document ‘near misses’ to inform later risk assessments.
The spreadsheet record has the advantage that the considerations that the assessments are based upon can be recorded.
The assessments can be dated and then revised periodically to ensure that the assessments are fresh. The best way to do this is to have regular toolbox meetings involving operational staff, with a facilitator to lead the assessment. This is engagement.
The only Risk Assessment Level that should be tolerated is Very Low. All other levels require action. If the risk is Extreme than the process must be stopped immediately.
If the risk is High, then the process must be controlled and then not restarted. If the risk is Moderate, the process must be controlled and changed urgently. If the risk is Low, changes should be implemented over time to make the risk Very Low.
There is a preferred hierarchy of control actions that is called the ‘Hierarchy of Control’. It is illustrated in Figure 2.
The higher up the response the better. Elimination or Substitution should always be considered, but may not be possible, so Engineering Controls should be used. It is unacceptable to rely upon an Administrative Control, such as a work rule, when an engineering control such as an interlock, could be installed.
Because controls sometimes fail, the reliability of each control should be considered. For example, if an interlock, which is an Engineering Control, can be easily defeated, then it is unreliable and must be replaced.
As a guide, when a hazard could result in a serious injury or fatality, and Elimination or Substitution is impractical, at least two and desirably three, independent Engineering Controls should exist. The ways in which these controls can fail should be considered in making the assessment.
The classification of the controls that were installed, as named in Figure 2, should be recorded in the spreadsheet.
So far, I have considered a workshop or warehouse workplaces. The same principles should be applied to the design and manufacture of machines.
In this case, I mean trucks and trailers that have plant equipment on board. Compliance with the ADRs provides necessary protection against road driving hazards.
The ADRs do not require protections, for example, against falls off the cabin steps, or falls from the top of a trailer, or long-term injury from poor ride quality or noise; or crush hazards when repositioning tray gates.
These hazards should be controlled. The responsibility for the control of these hazards may originally be with the supplier of the vehicle, but the employer inherits the responsibility.
State and national OH&S Regulations all require the designer, manufacturer and supplier of plant equipment to ensure that it is safe. That means that all the hazards must be identified, their risks classified (assessed) and those risks controlled.
Usually, the manufacturer’s assessment is not publicly available. Consider for example, a modifier who installs a concrete pump body, or a tow truck body onto a truck.
According to the National Heavy Vehicle Law, this is a modification, and it must be approved by an Approved Vehicle Examiner. The modification standards are in National Vehicle Standards Bulletin No. 6. Heavy Vehicle Modifications. VSB No 6 provides guidance about good engineering practice. It does not explicitly require that a Hazard and Risk Assessment be conducted, and the AVE is not responsible for it.
But the AVE should look out for hazards and insist on adequate risk controls.
The National Heavy Vehicle Law specifies that all parties in the chain of responsibility have a safety duty.
While it is unclear to me whether the supplier of a modified vehicle is in this chain, an authorised officer has the power to defect a vehicle that he/she assesses to be unsafe.
That is, when the risk of an identified hazard is uncontrolled. Such a hazard is unacceptable according to OH&S regulations.
Hazards arise from normal vehicle operation. Consider for example, the hazard that a trailer can separate from the truck. It is not possible to Eliminate or Substitute this hazard. Engineering Controls and Administrative Controls are used.
The risk is controlled by adequate strength, secondary locks and the automatic application of the brakes should the trailer separate. The driver should conduct a tug test (Administrative Control). There are other engineering controls that can be used. For example, safety chains might be installed, or a ‘catch bar’ can be put at the rear of the truck.
Operators may argue that these two additional protections are difficult to install, or maybe impractical. They may also cause other hazards that must be assessed. So, this example indicates that conducting a hazard and risk assessment can be difficult.
‘Thinking about safety’ should lead to conducting and documenting a Hazard and Risk Assessment, and then acting promptly to make all the risks Very Low, according to safety priorities. If this discipline is adopted by managers, designers, modifiers and engineers, we can all keep out of trouble.
Peter Hart,
Chairman, ARTSA-i
