This guide is for the routine check, when nothing has gone wrong. After an incident or near miss, start with what to do after a forklift near miss and proving your controls work after an incident.
The legal starting point is regulation 17 of the Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992: "Every workplace shall be organised in such a way that pedestrians and vehicles can circulate in a safe manner." Where vehicles and pedestrians use the same traffic route, the regulation requires "sufficient separation between them."
HSE's workplace transport guide, HSG136, sets the aim plainly: "The main aim of any design should be the segregation of vehicles from pedestrians." And on how: "Segregating pedestrians from vehicles, preferably by making routes entirely separate, is the most effective way of protecting them." Footbridges and subways are its examples of complete segregation. It then lists other effective ways to keep the two apart: clear markings and signs, raised kerbs, and protective barriers or guard rails.
Seen through the hierarchy of controls, these are not equal. A separate route removes the meeting. A barrier makes the meeting hard. A painted line asks everyone, on every shift, to choose not to meet. All three have their place, and a mix is normal; the painted line is simply the one that depends most on behaviour.
Because sites change, and people sensibly take the shorter way. HSG136 anticipates this. It asks you to "Consider making pedestrian traffic routes correspond to the paths people would naturally follow when walking across a site (often known as 'desire lines')." A walkway that adds a detour between the canteen and the dock tends to grow a worn path that cuts across it. The other drifts are familiar to anyone who has run a yard:
None of this is carelessness. It is ordinary work finding the easiest path.
A walk round at 10am tells you how segregation works at 10am. Segregation fails at the times nobody is checking.
HSG136 asks you to "Monitor your workplace activities involving vehicles (including visiting vehicles) over a reasonable period to build up a clear picture of vehicle and pedestrian traffic movements". A routine check keeps that picture current. Six habits make it worth the time.
1. Walk at different shifts. Include a shift start, a shift end, a night and the busiest hour at the dock. A dark yard behaves differently, which matters more once the clocks change.
2. Watch the crossing points, don't inspect the paint. Stand at the crossing for a while. Do people cross at the markings or a few metres along? Do drivers stop? Is the barrier where the plan says, and closed?
3. Record what you saw, not that you went. For each spot: the control and its state, the time, the shift, what you observed. For example, "Gate A barrier open, 05:50, night shift, people crossing outside the markings" is a finding. "Yard OK" is a visit. The first kind is active monitoring: records you can compare over time.
4. Look for desire lines. Worn grass, a gap in a fence, a door propped open. The site is telling you where people want to walk. Often the better answer is to move the route to the line, as HSG136 suggests, rather than defend the route against it.
5. Ask the people who use it. Drivers, pickers, agency staff, the gatehouse. HSG136 notes employees "may notice things that are not obvious and may have some good, practical ideas on how to control the risks." Ask where they feel exposed, without looking for someone to blame.
6. Re-check after any change. New racking, a new door, a contractor's compound, a new shift pattern. HSG136 asks you to "think about the effect of any changes in how things are done, eg different types of vehicle, or having to use different or new routes." Walk the affected routes in the first weeks, on more than one shift.
The paint can be perfect and the crossing unused.
A check that never reaches the risk assessment is just a walk. The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 require a risk assessment to be reviewed if "there is reason to suspect that it is no longer valid" or "there has been a significant change in the matters to which it relates". A recurring desire line across a vehicle route is reason to suspect.
In practice: add the findings to the workplace transport risk assessment, including where and when segregation is not being used. Choose the response by the hierarchy: move the route to the desire line, make the shortcut physically impossible, or stop vehicle movements at the busy time. Signs and briefings support those rather than replace them. Then set a date to check the change held, on the shift where the problem was found.
Update the traffic management plan to match. Near misses belong in the same picture, so it helps if your near-miss log records location and time in a way you can match to the walk records.
Over 2020/21 to 2024/25, being struck by a moving vehicle caused 16% of worker deaths in Great Britain, an average of 21 a year (UK workplace transport statistics). The events are rare and severe, which is why a control that works only some of the time is worth knowing about early.
Good segregation is one of the most effective things a site can do, and the routine check keeps it true. A walk samples one moment. The honest question after each one is which moments it has not sampled yet.
More on site layout for logistics and ports.
Keeping people on foot and vehicles apart so they cannot meet. HSE's guide HSG136 says that "Segregating pedestrians from vehicles, preferably by making routes entirely separate, is the most effective way of protecting them." Where routes must be shared or must cross, barriers, raised kerbs, marked crossings and signs reduce the risk.
Regulation 17 of the Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992 requires every workplace to be organised so that pedestrians and vehicles can circulate safely, and requires "sufficient separation" where they share a traffic route. How that is achieved depends on the site; the risk assessment is where the choice is made and justified.
Markings are a recognised control: HSE's Approved Code of Practice (L24) says that in buildings lines should be drawn on the floor to indicate routes followed by vehicles such as forklift trucks. But a line relies on everyone choosing to follow it, so it is worth checking more often, and where a separate route or physical barrier is practicable, that is the stronger control.
HSE does not set a fixed interval. A sensible routine covers every shift pattern over time, includes the busiest and darkest hours, and adds extra checks after any change in layout, vehicles or working pattern. What matters most is that each check records the control's state, the time and the shift.
Treat them as information. HSG136 advises making pedestrian routes correspond to the paths people naturally follow. Where the desire line is safe to formalise, move the route to it; where it is not, make it physically impossible and give people a route that is genuinely convenient.
Segregation is easy to inspect at 10am. What does your busiest crossing look like at 5am? Safety Mapping: a free two-week trial on one camera.
By Hao Zheng, CEO at RoboK · Published 28 October 2026 · Last updated 28 October 2026