Every month HSE publishes the cases it has taken to court. They are hard reading, and they are some of the most useful material the profession has: real sites, real findings, in the regulator's own words. We summarise the workplace transport cases here as a learning exercise, not to judge the people involved. Each case starts with a link to HSE's full release.
Read the full case: HSE press release, 29 October 2026. HSE's release names the company.
What happened. In June 2025 a worker on yard duties at a vehicle recovery business in Wiltshire was hit and crushed under a reversing company recovery truck. He suffered fractures to both legs and an arm, a punctured lung and a fractured rib. More than 10 months on, he has been unable to return to work.
What HSE found. The company "had failed to implement a suitable traffic management system to make sure vehicles and pedestrians could circulate safely and had not implemented proper precautions to assist reversing drivers." The company was fined £28,000 under Section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974.
In the inspector's words. "Almost 25 per cent of fatal workplace transport accidents in Great Britain occur while a vehicle is reversing – a stark reminder to employers to properly assess and manage this fundamental risk."
HSE's release points to the order of controls: a one-way system to remove the need to reverse; where that is not possible, barriers, clear markings and crossing points; then rear-view cameras and warning alarms on the vehicles.
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Read the full case: HSE press release, 23 October 2026. HSE's release names the company.
What happened. In November 2024 a 20-year-old worker on a ride-on pallet truck in a warehouse in South Yorkshire collided with a forklift truck. He suffered several fractures to his foot and nerve damage.
What HSE found. Routes had been changed to make room for new automated machinery. The changes "meant that both ride-on pallet trucks and fork lift trucks were required to use the same routes, within what was a busy stock loading area. Visibility was limited and vehicle movements had increased." The changes "had not been properly risk assessed before being implemented." The company was fined £80,000 under Section 2(1) of the Act.
In the inspector's words. "This case highlights the importance of carefully assessing the wider safety implications of any changes made within a workplace, even where those changes may be temporary."
A temporary route is still a route. It needs the same thinking as the permanent one.
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Read the full case: HSE press release, 16 October 2026. HSE's release names the company.
What happened. In October 2024 a worker at a site in Shropshire was acting as a "spotter" while a forklift loaded heavy switchboard equipment onto a flatbed lorry. The 231kg load was not secured to the forklift and fell on him. His brain and spine injuries mean he now needs care around the clock.
What HSE found. There was "no risk assessment or lift plan", although this was a regular task. The load could have been secured to the forklift using existing anchor points, and the lorry's own crane could have been used instead. Employees "were expected to steady the loads whilst they were being moved and lifted." HSE called this "clearly an unsafe and unnecessary system of work." The company was fined £4 million under Section 2(1) of the Act.
In the inspector's words. "Loading and unloading operations remain one of the most hazardous transport activities in the workplace."
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Read the full case: HSE press release, 26 October 2026. HSE's release names the company.
What happened. In March 2025 several workers at a manufacturer in Staffordshire were unloading steel components from a lorry trailer. They "improvised a system" to lift a one-tonne metal hopper with a forklift, with the forks underneath the unsecured load. It slid from the forks and struck a worker standing alongside it on the head. He suffered fractures to his skull, neck and spine.
What HSE found. The lift "had not been properly planned by a competent person". The load's weight, size, centre of gravity and lifting points had not been assessed, and "Moving an object of this size and weight was not a regular task at the site and there was no established system of work for it." The company was fined £300,000 under Regulation 8(1) of the Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations 1998.
In the inspector's words. "Employers must ensure that lifting operations are properly planned by a competent person and carried out safely. This is especially important for non-routine tasks involving heavy or awkward loads."
The routine jobs have a system. The unusual delivery is where people improvise.
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In each case a person was close to a moving vehicle or a moving load. And in each case HSE's findings were about arrangements made before the day: a traffic management system, a risk assessment of a change, a lift plan.
That is the encouraging part. Arrangements can be checked before anything goes wrong. HSE's guide to workplace transport safety asks for exactly that kind of check, and so does good active monitoring. A near miss in the same place is often the first sign that an arrangement has drifted, which is why it is worth a near-miss log that records where and when.
The useful question for any of these cases is not "could this happen here?" but "how would we know if it was starting to?"
HSE publishes its prosecution cases as press releases at press.hse.gov.uk, filterable by the category "Prosecution". Each release sets out what happened, what HSE found, the law breached, the penalty and comments from the investigating inspector. HSE also keeps public registers of prosecutions and enforcement notices.
Three of the four cases here were brought under Section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, the general duty on employers to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health, safety and welfare at work of their employees. The fourth was brought under Regulation 8(1) of the Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations 1998, which requires lifting operations to be properly planned by a competent person, appropriately supervised and carried out safely.
HSE's release on the reversing case points first to a one-way system that removes the need to reverse. Where that is not possible, the site should have protective barriers, clear markings and pedestrian crossing points, and vehicles should have aids such as rear-view cameras and warning alarms. HSE's guide HSG136 sets this out in more detail.
Yes. In the warehouse case HSE found that route changes made for an installation "had not been properly risk assessed before being implemented", and the inspector stressed the point applies "even where those changes may be temporary". The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 require a risk assessment to be reviewed when there has been a significant change.
LOLER applies to lifting equipment, which includes lift trucks, and both forklift cases here turned on lifting operations that had not been planned by a competent person. HSE's guidance on planning and organising lifting operations sets out what a plan should cover, including the load's weight, size, centre of gravity and lifting points.
By Hao Zheng, CEO at RoboK · Published 30 October 2026 · Last updated 1 November 2026
This piece starts from the ideas set out in How We Think About Safety.
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