During picking season, make sure you have a safe and efficient way for workers to move between orchards.

Never allow anyone to ride on attachments – including trailers – which are not designed to carry passengers.

This harvest, Worksafe is asking all growers to prepare safe systems of work so everyone can return home safely to their families and communities.

Most trailers are designed to carry produce and equipment, not people.

This means there is a higher risk of roll-over and run-over for people when riding on trailers.

Safety issues

People should not ride on trailers.

Where an employer provides a trailer or towed attachment for moving people, the employer must ensure:

• it is designed to move people in a way that is safe and without risk to health, and
• the safety equipment provides the rider with the same level of protection as the operator of the vehicle towing the trailer (such as roll-over protection, seats, seat belts, falling object protection).

Controlling the risk

Before you start working with trailers on a farm, ask yourself the following:

• Can the task be done differently so that I do not need to use a trailer?
• Can I use a ute or truck instead? This removes the chance of a person being run over by a trailer or attachment.
• Can I move people around the farm another way, like with a minibus?
• Can the trailer and/or towed equipment be designed so people cannot ride on them, like by eliminating flat areas on a fruit picking trailer where a person could stand or sit

Training

You must always provide appropriate information, instruction, training or supervision to your employees.

This could include providing employees with instruction and training, or supervision on:

• The risks of riding on tractors, trailers or equipment that are not designed to move people.
• Using safer ways to move people around the farm, like vehicles such as minibuses or cars.

Legal duties

Under the Occupational Health and Safety Act 2004, employers must, so far as is reasonably practicable:

• Provide and maintain a working environment that is safe and without risks to the health of employees. This includes identifying risks to health or safety in the use of vehicles, trailers, quad bikes, etc, and eliminating those risks or reducing them so far as is reasonably practicable. Employees includes independent contractors and labour hire workers.
• Ensure persons other than employees of the employer, for example visitors or members of the public, are not exposed to risks to their health or safety from the conduct of the undertaking of the employer.

Towing fruit bins with a tractor? Ask yourself:

• How will you ensure people cannot ride in the bins, on trailers or on draw bars? Can you modify or select trailers to avoid this? For example, removing flat areas on a fruit picking trailer.
• Can you transport people around the farm another way – walking, using a minivan or using vehicles fitted with seatbelts?
• Do workers understand the risks of riding on tractors, trailers or equipment that are not designed to move people?

Employers and self-employed persons also have duties under the Occupational Health and Safety Regulations 2017, Part 3.5 – Plant Regulations.

Please see the Plant, Compliance Code for further information on duties relating to plant.

For more details go to: www.worksafe.vic.gov.au/horticulture