Double Fatality: Coal Firm Fined2012|2011
The Scottish Coal Company has been fined £400,000 for failing to ensure a safe system of working, which led to the deaths of two miners.Thirty-seven-year-old Colin Ferguson and Brian French, 48, died at the mine in Ayrshire last February when their Land Rover was crushed by a lOO-tonne dump truck. An investigation by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) found that the "entirely preventable" deaths arose from management failures. It was found that the company allowed smaller vehicles to operate near larger trucks without warning systems such as radar or CCTV in place to prevent collisions. Although the dump truck was fitted with mirrors, the driver of the dump truck couldn't see the Land Rover because it was in a blind spot.
The firm admitted breaching s 3 (1) of the Health and Safety at Work, etc Act 1974. Passing sentence, Sheriff John Montgomery said the company had been guilty of two failures over the deaths. "The first is a failure to provide a safe system of work for the movement of vehicles and plant at the site," he said.
"Relatively small vehicles such as a Land Rover in which the two deceased were travelling were not prevented from being operated in close proximity to large vehicles including dump trucks while they were being operated with reduced visual fields thereby creating a risk of collision.
"The second is a failure to provide the operators of all mobile plant with suitable means of communication or other equipment to reduce the risk of collision and injury." The Sheriff added that the accident was strikingly similar to another at the site in 2005, where a supervisor had narrowly managed to escape from a Land Rover before it was crushed by an excavator.
"That, however, should have alerted the company of the need to put in place systems designed to reduce the risks of similar accidents occurring again," Montgomery said.