Health and Safety for Beginners Forums

Hello all,

We are a small distribution centre in the UK which has a shared car park used for both customer/staff parking, and for deliveries. This has 2 shutter doors controlled on the inside for both Goods In and Goods Out. The car park outside these shutter doors are marked with yellow boxes and lines. All parking spots around the edges of the car park are clearly marked.

Staff have been given a hi-vis vests to be used whilst in the car park, even if this is for walking to their car, walking through the small part of the car park to exit the premises for going to shop etc. This is so they are visible to the delivery vehicles constantly coming in and out of the car park as it is a shared area.

The question is, where does this stand when it comes to customers walking through the car park? Is a hi-vis vest an acceptable piece of PPE to be seen by the delivery vehicles? Should the car park have more marking for walkways that would then prevent the staff from needing to wear Hi-vis vests?

Any information that you can provide to help with this issue would be greatly appreciated, or if you need any more information on the situation I can provide.

Hi ComFiltHS

Welcome to the forums

In line with the hierarchy of control measures, PPE should be used as a last resort in protecting people.
I would suggest segregation of people as a first line of defence, if you can arrange this (Pedestrian walkways), failing that an alternative maybe to move your customer car-park.

As I cannot see the specific layout or understand the tenancy agreement (ownership) of the car-park it is hard to give a totally informed answer.

Will

Can you create a physical seperation of routes taken by deliveries and customers? even if its just the final stages of the delivery?
Make it a rule that drivers must back up to shutters. If you can set up an ensclosed area then the risk is minimised when backing in and even more so when pulling out in to the customers areas.
Are deliveries scheduled? if so, can you make use of a banksman to control things?
Marked walk ways are definately a good thing to have.

His vis is good but only if a driver can see you. This relies on staff not standing in blind spots. Again, marked areas and procedures of no go areas can help reduce billy bellend standing behind a van whilst he tries to write clean me on it.