Dangerous Parts Guidance

Guidance

Index

1. Machinery - Dangerous Parts of Machinery
2. Legal Test for Danger
3. Machinery - Safety Checklist   (Machinery_Safety_Checklist (RTF, 9 KB) can be downloaded )

Machinery - Dangerous parts of machinery 

Machines taken as a whole cannot be considered to be dangerous per se, but most machines have some parts which are capable of causing injury to those who work at them or come close to them e.g. guillotines, shredders, conveyors, copiers,

lifts, printing machines, baling machines and all the portable tools and fixed machines to be found on the maintenance workbench. The University has a duty to protect staff/students from any parts of dangerous machinery.

The dangerous parts inflict their harm in one or more of the ways described here:

• crushing - as when a hand or other part of the body is caught between the tools of a power press or injection moulding machine.
• by contact - as when a hand slips when an abrasive wheel (grindstone) is being used and comes into contact with the abrasive surface of the wheel rotating at high speed.
• by trapping - as when a part of the body, or an item of clothing is drawn into a gap or nip such as in-running rollers, or a belt or chain drive.
• by entanglement - as when a projection on a revolving shaft (or even a smooth shaft) catches and takes up hair or clothing which can eventually involve the whole body of the victim. There is frequently a fatal outcome to entanglement involving the clothing, and where hair is caught scalping is a common consequence.
• by impact - as when a moving part of a machine strikes part of someone close by.
• by ejection - as when a machine throws out bits of the material being worked on (grit from a grindstone, wood chips from a circular saw, or molten metal from a die-casting machine), or broken bits of the machinery itself.

Legal test for danger

There has been a judicial test for establishing what constitutes danger for many years. Parts of machinery are dangerous when they are 'a reasonably foreseeable cause of injury to anybody acting in a way in which a human being may be reasonably expected to act in circumstances which may be reasonably expected to occur'.

Once the test is applied and danger is established, the law lays down an absolute standard of protection. The standard is that of 'secure fencing'. Arguments that the guarding would be too expensive or that fitting guards makes the machine unworkable are irrelevant.

Machinery - Safety Checklist

This checklist may be copied and used for all potentially hazardous equipment other than simple and straightforward items.

INFORMATION, INSTRUCTIONS AND SAFE USE

(Machinery_Safety_Checklist (RTF, 9 KB)can be downloaded - Here)

32. SUMMARY

Action to be taken in order of priority:  ..............................................................................

..........................................................................................................................................

..........................................................................................................................................

Date by which action to be taken: ..............................................................................

Date for review (maximum interval 5 years) ......................................................

Machinery_Safety_Checklist (RTF, 9 KB) can be downloaded.

Return to Codes and Guidance - Index

Return to Environmental, Health and Safety Services - Home Page

Return to University of St. Andrews Homepage (University)

Machinery_Safety_Checklist (RTF, 9 KB)