Íæż½ã½ãÂ’s news team talk about agricultureÂ’s poor health and safety record as the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) launch a campaign to reduce deaths and injuries from farm vehicles
Taking simple steps to keep safe around farm vehicles is the focus of a new campaign from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) as it looks to reduce accidents on farm.
Incidents involving vehicles are the number one cause of death on British farms, killing 48 people in the past five years.
The campaign focuses on three areas: operating a safe farm?by keeping people and vehicles apart, being a safe driver and maintaining a safe vehicle.
Speaking on Íæż½ã½ãÂ’s Over the Farm Gate podcast, HSE head of agriculture Adrian Hodkinson, said: "There are things that can be done that are relatively simple and straightforward. One of which is simply putting the handbrake on every time you get out of the vehicle to stop you being run over.”
Other measures included keeping mirrors clean, maintaining the structure of the cab and training those operating machinery.
Example
Eve Macready Jones, from HSEÂ’s agricultural policy team, gave the example of a young farmer killed recently while attempting to climb onto a moving tractor.
“They missed their footing completely, fell from the tractor and were drawn into the machinery being towed by the tractor,” she said.
“A safe stop, isolating the power and potentially just taking that bit of extra time would have hopefully prevented something like that happening.
“It might sound simplistic, but it is something we see over and over again. Failure to carry out that safe stop procedure.”
She said she understood the pressure on farms but added ‘people cannot be replaced’.
