A driver on site without a safety induction: whose risk is it

A driver from another company who gets out of their vehicle on your site is moving around premises you are responsible for. They aren’t your employee, but an incident involving them is an incident on your site, with your internal traffic, your signage and your forklift trucks. A documented induction before entry reduces that risk and puts the evidence in order, but it doesn’t shift responsibility onto the driver.

A board of site rules, a signature on a printout and a verbal briefing

The board with the site rules hangs by the gate, it is in Polish, and nobody can show that a particular driver read it. The signature on a printout in the gatehouse exists, but it sits in a lever-arch file with no link to the entry, and finding a signature from a year ago takes half a day, if it can be found at all. A verbal briefing from security depends on who happens to be on shift and leaves no trace.

An induction given only in Polish has one more flaw: a driver who doesn’t understand it will sign anything put in front of them. A signature under content the signer didn’t understand is worse than no signature, because it creates the appearance of protection.

What can be documented before entry

Before a driver enters, you can document:

• the induction content in the driver’s language, which shows that the message was understood,
• a signature on the terminal, linked to the person, the content and the time,
• the version of the content, so you know exactly what was signed, even after the site rules change,
• the induction’s validity, so the same driver’s next entry doesn’t need a repeat while the induction is still valid,
• the link to the entry, so the document can be found by vehicle and date without going through a lever-arch file.

The validity period is a setting, so it is chosen to suit the site: too long turns the induction into a formality, too short irritates drivers who come every week.

Who gives the induction: security or a terminal

When inductions are introduced, staffing causes more trouble than technology. An induction given by security competes with the queue at the gate, and the queue wins within the first week. That is why it is moved to a terminal, where the driver goes through it on their own, without tying up a member of staff.

What the induction and its records do not settle

Induction records don’t replace signage on site or traffic rules. The induction talks about the rules, and those have to exist and be visible.

Nor do the records shift responsibility onto the driver: they reduce the risk and put the evidence in order, but the extent of liability is decided by the law and the circumstances, not by a signature.

The induction on the terminal is an initial induction for a person entering the site; it is not the periodic health and safety training that Polish regulations prescribe for employees. Nor will TraxSystem block entry by itself: it shows the operator that there is no valid induction and leaves the decision to them. The scope and content of the induction are set by your health and safety officer, and we provide the means of delivering and documenting it.

Questions and answers

See also: Health and safety induction for drivers who don’t speak Polish · Health and safety induction on a terminal, without tying up staff · Drivers check themselves in: how a gate kiosk works