Electronic gate danger
HSE issue safety notice
Two recent, separate, incidents that both
led to the deaths of young children have highlighted a risk of
using automatic vehicle access gates. (These incidents are in
addition to an earlier fatality, which also involved a young child
in 2006, and other recent near misses). Whilst these recent
fatalities involved automatic sliding gates, this Safety Notice
applies to all powered access gates.
In both these cases, the children were trapped between the
closing edge of the gate and the gate post at the end of the gates'
travel. They were trapped because:
- Their presence in the vicinity of the closing edge was not
detected; and
- The closing force of the gate when they obstructed it was not
limited to the values specified in Annex A of BS EN
12453:2001.
For more information see the HSE
safety notice