Injury at Work Caused by Tiredness

Claim compensation for workplace injury from road accidents and other accidents caused by tiredness due to overly strenuous work

According to the Occupational Road Safety Alliance, 25% to 30% of road traffic collisions involve somebody who was using the road for work purposes. Not only is night time a peak time for accidents, but the middle of the afternoon is also a period where there is a higher chance of an accident occurring due to driver tiredness.

However, it is not just driver fatigue that is an issue. Tiredness can also lead to other operator errors and the HSE has noted that the frequency of injuries in an engineering company increased during the afternoon and especially evening shifts.

Health and safety regulations require employers to ensure, so far as reasonably practicable, the health and safety of all employees while at work. Employers also have a responsibility to ensure that others are not put at risk by the work related activities of their fellow employees. Consideration of how work is undertaken should include thought being given to risks posed by employee tiredness for example caused by excessively long hours of work or other overly strenuous job requirements.

An assessment may reveal that the tasks a company is requiring its workers to undertake are simply too much for the worker to undertake within one day without increasing the risk to safety posed by tiredness.  Still, many employers fail to consider these factors and take appropriate action to combat risks arising in this crucial area.

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Conditions that cause tiredness at work and injury risk

The following are examples of conditions which may lead to employee tiredness and increase risks to employee safety:-

• Being required to drive long distances for work in an unrealistic time frame, allowing insufficient time for rest breaks and increasing risk of driver speeding to meet company imposed deadlines
• Being required to travel a long distance to a site where an employee is expected to carryout a full day’s work before making the long return journey home
• Being requested or permitted to work excessive hours or unreasonable shift patterns leading to fatigue

Case Study: worker's tiredness causes road accident

The claimant was employed by a small company and was expected to drive in the course of his employment. He was expected to drive from the company’s Yorkshire base to carry out work nationally. The work involved long hours of manual labour, but rather than staying overnight, the employees would return home each night. An accident occurred late in the evening when the claimant was driving home having initially left in the early hours of the same morning, when he was found by the court to have fallen asleep at the wheel.  The claimant recovered damages for the severe spinal injuries that he sustained as a consequence of his accident.

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