Conviction and fine for road worker's death
A conviction and a total of $1.55 million in fines have been handed to VicRoads and Downer EDI following the 2011 death of a traffic controller.
VicRoads pleaded guilty to one breach of the Occupational Health and Safety Act 2004 in that it failed to maintain a safe system of work. It was fined $250,000.
Downer EDI was found guilty of three charges: failing to provide a safe system of work; failing to provide employees with information, instruction and training for them to perform their job safely; and failing to ensure people other than their employees were not exposed to health and safety risks.
According to the WorkSafe Victoria report, earlier this year, Downer EDI pleaded not guilty to all charges but a County Court jury had found it guilty of each. The company was subsequently fined $1.3 million.
The court had heard that on 30 November 2011, worker Harry Zagaretos was struck and killed by a street sweeper during late-night roadworks in Bayswater.
Zagaretos was employed by Statewide Traffic Control, which was subcontracted by Downer EDI. He died shortly after the street sweeper reversed over him as he was aligning bollards to separate traffic from resurfacing works on Canterbury Road.
The court heard the likelihood of the risk of death or serious injury eventuating from a collision between the sweeper and workers was high, and that safety concerns raised by Zagaretos to the site supervisor in relation to the driving of the sweeper had not been addressed.
On 12 February 2014, Wayne Pollard, who was driving the street sweeper at the time, was sentenced to a two-year community corrections order and ordered to perform 500 hours of unpaid community work.
WorkSafe Victoria Executive Director of Health and Safety Marnie Williams said the penalties for VicRoads and Downer EDI reflected the seriousness of the offence.
“Any work that involves the need for pedestrian employees to be around traffic is high risk, and safety needs to be considered above everything at all times,” Williams said.
“There is little doubt that had Mr Zagaretos’s concerns been listened to, and the risks at the site been addressed, this tragedy would not have happened.”
Originally published here.
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