WORKSAFE ACT has announced its unhappiness after a safety blitz on truck-mounted concrete placing booms found widespread dangerous behaviour in the construction industry.

Nineteen truck mounted concrete placing booms were been inspected by WorkSafe ACT inspectors.

Of these, five were issued with prohibition notices putting them off the road.

“The decision to put a truck off the road is not taken lightly and it is a measure of the seriousness of the non-compliance and risk to workers that prohibition notices were issued,” said Worksafe Commissioner Mark McCabe.

“These prohibition notices were issued in circumstances where a six-yearly major strip-down service had not been undertaken, or where the PCBU could not adequately demonstrate that one had been performed

A total of eleven Improvement Notices have also been issued during the safety blitz. These notices were issued for various instances of non-compliance including where emergency stops for the plant did not meet Australian Standards.

“It is concerning that the blitz has recorded such a high incidence of non-compliance. Some of the operators in this sector have a cavalier approach to safety. For some, at least, keeping trucks in service clearly takes priority over safety considerations. There are also indications that every effort is made by some to keep costs to a minimum in order to undercut competitors who are trying to comply by their obligations.

“Apart from the potentially disastrous consequences of not conducting important maintenance checks, on one truck the emergency stop button was inoperable and almost all companies were failing to do site-specific risk assessments, relying instead on generic risk assessments that assumed every job was the same.”

“Worst of all was when WorkSafe inspectors caught one truck involved in a concrete pour after they had issued a formal Prohibition Notice putting it off the road several days earlier. This is a very serious offence which may be referred to the DPP for prosecution.”

[“Concrete Pump RB“. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.]