Goodyear Dunlop pleaded guilty to breaching the 1974 Health and Safety at Work Act in a hearing before Birmingham magistrates at the beginning of August. The manufacturer was fined £13,500 and ordered to pay £2,888.04 in costs plus £4000 in damages.
Goodyear Dunlop’s main response has come in the form of its new “No one gets hurt” plan, which includes safety awareness training, and risk assessments that are designed to lead to improvements in processes and equipment usage. “[Goodyear Dunlop] has a positive commitment towards health and safety and continues to strive towards a culture and environment in which all its employees can work safely. We will learn from the findings of this case and continue to improve towards achieving our objective of No-one Gets Hurt,” a company spokesperson said in a statement.
According to an HSE report, the incident occurred on June 15, 2007, when a casing operator was inspecting tyre casings and a forklift truck loaded with a four-high stack of heavy steel stillages (pallets) passed by. The stillages were not secured to each other or to the truck and toppled onto the worker causing two fractures to one of his ribs.
Following the case, HSE inspector Amarjit Kalay commented: "It is important that individuals and employers remember their duties under the law to take reasonable care of the health and safety of others. The injuries inflicted could have been significantly worse, or even fatal. Operators of lift trucks must ensure that they operate them in accordance with training and employers must ensure that they are used safely." (Tyres & Accessories/Staffordshire, U.K.)
