Customer truck drivers have been involved in six fatal accidents since 2021, according to the Mine Safety & Health Administration (MSHA).
With production picking up this spring, MSHA issued a safety alert to remind mining operations about the dangers sometimes faced by customer truck drivers.
The agency encourages mine operators to provide site-specific hazard awareness training to customers, including commercial over-the-road truck drivers. Operators are also encouraged to alert customer truck drivers to changes in traffic procedures, patterns or road conditions.
Other best practices the agency encourages operators to follow are to provide fall protection or safe means of access to customers needing to gain access to containers or tankers on their vehicles if there is danger of falling. Providing and maintaining a safe location for drivers to tarp their loads is also advised, as is ensuring customers follow proper loading and dumping procedures.
In recent years, MSHA says a truck driver was electrocuted when he tried to reenter the truck’s cab while the trailer’s tarping mechanism was in contact with an energized overhead high-voltage power line. Yet another fatal accident involved a truck driver who sustained injuries after he fell from a large container mounted on the trailer of his truck.
