§ 47. Mr. Rankinasked the Minister of Labour if he is aware of the increase in the accident rate in industries where transport is involved and on prime movers; and what steps are being taken to reduce the number of accidents.
§ Sir W. MoncktonI am aware of the increases for 1951 as compared with 1950 reported on page 47 of the recently published Annual Report of the Chief Inspector of Factories, under the headings of Transport Vehicles (except for railways) and Prime Movers, respectively. The predominating factors giving rise to such increases have been a progressive increase in the use of trucks and other methods of internal transport in connection with greater mechanisation, and the progressively greater use of sectional machine driving resulting in an increase in the number of prime movers. The increases in accidents under these heads are, however, offset to some extent by reductions in accidents under the heading of Handling Goods and under the heading of Transmission Machinery, respectively.
The attention of managements has been drawn to various means of minimising transport accidents, and this is followed up by inspectors in the course of their visits. Inspectors also devote close attention to the fencing of prime movers.