Forklift Brake Failure Incident Could Have Been Avoided

Keeping people safe by paying better attention to vehicle
maintenance would have saved a worker from a serious
forklift injury, WorkSafe New Zealand says.

Casey
Broad, WorkSafe’s National Manager Investigations, says
the $240,000 fine handed down to Refrigafreighters Limited
for an incident in September 2022 is a wake-up call to all
businesses using forklifts.

“A worker had been
collecting rubbish with the forklift. They parked it and put
the handbrake on, but when they got out it started to roll
down the slope it was parked on.”

The 33-year-old
tried to recover the forklift but it tipped onto him and
caused serious injuries including a punctured lung and
broken back.

“WorkSafe’s investigation verified
the forklift hadn’t been maintained and serviced to the
standard we’d expect. We asked specialists to take a look
and what they found was shocking – there were serious
safety issues with the handbrake, to the point it would
never have been able to stop the forklift from moving even
on a slight incline.”

WorkSafe’s Casey Broad says
the sentence is a reminder for businesses to keep workers
safe.

“Businesses must ensure that forklifts and
other vehicles and machines are safe to use. If businesses
don’t meet their health and safety responsibilities,
WorkSafe will hold them to account.”

“A lot of
businesses use forklifts, but like any vehicle they need to
be serviced and maintained so issues are picked up early and
fixed. If you don’t, things can go wrong
quickly.”

“Unfortunately there are too many
incidents involving forklifts in New Zealand – businesses
can do better to keep people
safe.”

Background

• Refrigafreighters
  Limited was sentenced at Manukau District
  Court.
• Refrigafreighters was fined $240,000.
  Reparations of $62,279 were
  ordered.
• Refrigafreighters was charged under
  sections 36(1)(a), s48(1) and (2)(c) of the Health and
  Safety at Work Act 2015
  • Being a PCBU having a duty to
    ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health and
    safety of workers who work for the PCBU, while the workers
    are at work in the business or undertaking, did fail to
    comply with that duty and that failure exposed workers,
    including the victim, to a risk of serious injury or death
    arising from the Hangcha Forklift.
• The
  maximum penalty is a fine not exceeding $1.5
  million.

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