Royal Mail Group has been fined £1.6 million after a worker acting as yard marshal was seriously injured in a collision with a truck at its Jubilee Royal Mail Centre in London. Royal Mail Group was charged with breaching Section 2.1 of the Health and Safety at Work Act (HASAWA) over the accident at the mail centre yard on 12 December 2014.  The injured party, employed as a yard marshal, was struck by a 7.5 tonne truck as it left the yard, knocking him unconscious and causing multiple injuries, including a fractured‎ jaw and several fractured ribs.

In a separate incident a McDonald’s franchise has been fined after a teenage employee was hit by an angry motorist outside its Lakeside Shopping Centre branch in Thurrock. Road signs for the restaurant’s drive-through and car park entrances were unclear and Danny Osborne had been asked by his shift manager to go outside and direct customers.

A court heard how the driver became ‘aggressive’ and drove into Danny, who was just 17 at the time in 2014. He was left with a fractured knee and was forced to give up boxing and a career in construction.

Thurrock Council brought the prosecution after its investigation into the incident found McDonald’s had not trained its staff how to direct and control traffic.  Prosecuting lawyer Richard Heller read out a statement from Mr Osborne, which said: “This accident has really stopped me from doing all the things, physically, that I wanted to do growing up. I will have to live with this for the rest of my life.”

McDonald’s in Lakeside was found not to have provided sufficient training; the company was fined £200,000 and ordered to pay £26,343 in costs.

These cases demonstrate the hazards of pedestrians and vehicles sharing a work place as they often do in the events industry.  Aside from general duties of care under HASAWA, there is a clear legal requirement to separate pedestrians from vehicle movement in the Workplace (Health Safety and Welfare) Regulations and Regulations 27 and 28 in CDM applicable to event construction.  The HSE has also issued clear guidance in the form of HSG 136 – Workplace Transport Safety.