Crane operators warned after fatal accident
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A HAULAGE BOSS is advising operators to upgrade the safety of truck-mounted cranes after one of his drivers was jailed for causing the death of a six-year-old girl.
Jim Entwistle. director of Entwistle Haulage in Blackpool. says the locking mechanism on a crane stabilising leg that swung out and struck the girl's head was not working properly. Driver Malcolm Lane knew of the defect but had failed to secure the leg with rope.
The girl, Freya Aldred, was knocked unconscious in the accident in September. 2004 and died two weeks later. Her five-year-old brother sustained multiple injuries, including a fractured skull.
Lane, from Crawley, East Sussex, was jailed for 20 months by Guildford Crown Court and disqualified from driving for two years after admitting causing death by dangerous driving. Mechanic Stuart MacMillan had been cleared at an earlier hearing of aiding and abetting causing death by dangerous driving.
Entwistle says the danger of relying on drivers to stow legs away manually is that they will forget due to pressure of work:"We won't fit a crane now without hydraulically operated stabiliser legs. I'd advise others to do the same. It adds £800-£1,200 to the cost, but if anyone says that's money not well spent,they should have been in our shoes for the past 18 months."
Since April 2005, Vosa has included safety checks on crane stabiliser legs in annual tests.