Lawford Kidd's Blog

Child pedestrians are two and a half times more likely than adults to be injured in road accidents, according to new figures from the Glasgow Centre for Population Health (GCPH).

Although accident rates are falling, more child and adult pedestrians are injured in road traffic accidents in deprived areas compared with more affluent areas. Over the last decade, in deprived areas, three times as many child pedestrians were injured than in less deprived areas. Similarly, in deprived areas there were 2.5 times as many adult pedestrians injured than in less deprived areas.

For cyclists, there has been a rise in adult cyclist casualties in the last decade and casualty rates are consistently higher in the more affluent neighbourhoods, which is likely to relate to a greater number of cyclists commuting from these areas.

Petroineos Manufacturing Scotland Ltd of Grangemouth Oil Refinery has been fined £24,000 by Falkirk Sheriff Court for safety failings back in October 2012, which led to an onsite worker being injured while cleaning a vent pipe.

The Grangemounth-based firm admitted contravening Regulation 12(1) of The Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998, and Section 33(1)(c) of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974.

Following the tragic death of a roof worker, Hamilton Sheriff Court has imposed a £40,000 fine on scaffolding business based in Glasgow, Lanarkshire.

The fine followed the firm - Extra Access Limited - pleading guilty to breaching Section 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974.

Road safety charity Brake has recently highlighted a number of worrying trends with regards to the safety of the UK’s roads.

The first area of concern for the charity is the number of deaths and serious injuries that are still occurring on the roads as a result of drink driving. Government figures show that in 2013, 240 people were killed by drivers over the legal drink drive limit, and provisional estimates for 2014 suggest that a similar number lost their lives last year as well.

The profile of Britain’s illegal drink drivers has apparently remained largely the same:

The skipper of a shellfish fishing boat has been sentenced for serious safety failings after the death of a diver in the River Forth Estuary.

Graeme Mackie was working as a scuba diver to collect shellfish from Ronald John MacNeil’s boat the “Rob Roy” when the incident occurred in June 2011.

Dunfermline Sheriff Court heard that Mr Mackie had entered the water for his first dive, around 600 metres south of Methil Harbour, but re-surfaced a minute later waving in obvious distress before disappearing again under the water.