A RUNAWAY FORKLIFT has cost Toll Transport a $40,000 fine after a magistrate found the company guilty of failing in its health and safety duty at the Port of Burnie four years ago.
According to ACM’s the Advocate the forklift fell off the stern ramp of Toll Shipping (now Strait Link)’s first generation Victorian Reliance as it was being used to relocate ramp fingers at the Number 4 ro-ro berth.
The operator safely evacuated the forklift before it fell into Emu Bay and was not injured.
In the Burnie Magistrates Court on Wednesday [4 December], Magistrate Leanne Topfer found there had been no discussion of proper safety procedures to extend the stern-side fingers to allow unloading before the incident on the day in question.
Chocks had not been used on the ramp to stop the forklift moving and there had been no discussion about using a crane as a better, and safer, method of extending the fingers, The Advocate reported.
“The operator jumped from the forklift but could have been killed or seriously injured through blunt force or drowning if he had been unable to get out of the machine,” Magistrate Topfer said.
“A risk assessment should have been done and that would have likely resulted in a different or safer method of unloading to be used rather than a forklift,” she said. She noted the worker was not wearing a lifejacket despite working near the water.
In her findings, she said Toll Transport had immediately introduced new safe work methods to ensure workers were no longer near the water’s edge when ships were unloaded.
“This is not a flagrant breach of health and safety duties and the company reviewed its ship loading and unloading methods immediately after,” Magistrate Topfer said.
The forklift was recovered from the water after the incident.
Meanwhile, the second of Strait Link’s current Bass Strait ro-ros, Victorian Reliance II, is expected back in Melbourne on 12 December after its special survey drydocking at Sembawang, Singapore, during which it received its new Strait Link livery.
Strait Link’s freight competitor, SeaRoad Shipping, is due to send its chartered Liekut to Singapore later this month for its own drydocking.
