Tasmanian Freight Services Pty Ltd was convicted and fined $40,000 in the Sunshine Magistrates’ Court on Friday, November 22, after pleading guilty to a single charge of failing to maintain a safe workplace.
In December 2022, WorkSafe issued the Laverton North company an improvement notice requiring them to reduce the risks of forklifts colliding with pedestrians and revise its traffic management plan following an anonymous complaint.
Among the safety concerns raised in the complaint were forklifts loading pallets onto a truck and then pushing them towards workers on the other side of the vehicle, forklifts operating less than a metre from pedestrians, people crossing a yard without walkways near moving forklifts, products stored across a pedestrian walkway, and no clearly marked “no go zones” for forklifts.
The court heard that on subsequent visits in May, July and August 2023, inspectors witnessed multiple further instances of forklifts operating close to pedestrians.
They included a truck driver criticising a forklift operator for coming too close to his vehicle, forklifts driving over walkways, people interacting with forklift drivers as they walked across the warehouse and driveway, and safety line markings having been worn away.
WorkSafe said it was reasonably practicable for Tasmanian Freight Services to eliminate or reduce the risk by implementing a traffic management plan to ensure that a three metre exclusion zone between pedestrians and powered mobile plant was maintained and/or designated pedestrian walkways and truck driver safety zones were maintained.
WorkSafe executive director of health and safety Sam Jenkin discussed the hazards of pedestrians and forklifts.
“If your business works with forklifts or mobile plants, having an up to date and effective traffic management plan – and actually implementing it – is non-negotiable,” he said.
“This year alone, almost 150 Victorian workers have needed time off work after being injured by forklifts so there’s no excuse for not taking the risks seriously.”
WorkSafe said that workers using mobile plants such as forklifts should ensure they keep an up-to-date traffic management plan, pedestrians are separated from moving machinery, effective communication is established between departments and visibility threats are flagged.
