The Construction Plant-hire Association (CPA) has released new operational safety guidance entitled ‘Staying Safe When Operating Forward Tipping Dumpers’ which is principally aimed at operators for refresher training purposes.
The publication has been released following a number of recent serious incidents involving Forward Tipping Dumpers, key factors of which include overturning of dumpers and individuals being struck by dumpers.
A number of construction industry forum meetings have been held in recent months to specifically discuss Forward Tipping Dumpers, with the overall aim of helping avoid future incidents. The first was hosted by the CPA and the Health & Safety Executive (HSE) in October 2016 and afterwards in January 2017 at Tonic Construction.
The most recent forum was jointly hosted by the CPA and the Civil Engineering Contractors Association (CECA) in Solihull in September this year. At this latest forum it was agreed that a total of seven principles would be used as a basis of an Action Plan relating to effective vision, machine stability, training and information, competence, travelling on spoil heaps, exclusion zones and equipment selection.
The CPA’s new ‘Staying Safe When Operating Forward Tipping Dumpers’ guidance is divided into three comprehensive sections. Section one consists of a ‘Stay Safe By’ list of actions for operators; section two consists of supporting underpinning knowledge providing the ‘hows and whys’ of each action, and is designed to provide assistance for Toolbox Talks and one-to-one familiarisation activities; section three is aimed at managers and supervisors in terms of planning and supervision requirements.
The publication also includes a case study to aid learning, based on an observed event, and outlines the causes and consequences of the activity and how it can be prevented.
Much of the content of section two has been supplied by the CITB from the Construction Plant Competence Scheme (CPCS) card renewal fact sheets that recheck core knowledge of cardholders on card renewal.
The CPA-produced publication has been designed to support a number of existing safe operational guidance publications from the HSE including HSG 144 Safe Use of Vehicles Construction Sites. The CPA’s Staying Safe guidance can be downloaded free of charge from the CPA website at www.cpa.uk.net/publications
Colin Wood, Chief Executive of the CPA said: “The issue around dumper safety has become a major topic for our members as well as the industry in general. Because of this, we are co-leading the forum along with CECA and as part of our commitment, we pressed ahead to devise this operator-based safety guidance. This will go some way towards helping industry address the issues, but it is only the first step that we’re taking in setting out guidance for safer dumper operations.”
Kevin Minton, Director of the CPA and Co-chair of the forum added: “We are seeking a range of solutions to ensure the operator and others stay safe. As part of the forum’s action plan, the Stay Safe guidance will be the first of a number of documents that will be published through the CPA.
“Others will include a Good Practice Guide on Forward Tipping Dumpers which will be devised by the Strategic Forum Plant Safety Group, and an update to the Plant Safety Group’s work on Ground Conditions. This update will provide guidance and recommendations for the operation of dumpers on spoil heaps.”
