Legislation, Regulations and Operator Responsibilities
What this domain tests
The examiner wants you to link the site rules you follow every shift back to the UK statute that creates them, and to know where your personal duty starts and ends. Questions are usually scenario-based rather than asking you to recite section numbers.
Core rules
- Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 - section 7 requires you to take reasonable care of yourself and others and to co-operate with your employer; section 8 makes it an offence to interfere with anything provided for safety, including guards, reversing alarms and signs.
- PUWER 1998 - work equipment must be suitable, maintained and inspected, with effective stop controls, stability and guarding. The daily walk-around check is a PUWER duty, not paperwork.
- MHSWR 1999 - risk assessment and competent persons; you must follow the safe system of work and report hazards.
- CDM 2015 - construction phase plan, site induction and a traffic management plan you must comply with.
- RIDDOR 2013 - specified injuries, over-7-day injuries and dangerous occurrences such as an overturn or contact with a live cable must be reported.
- PPE at Work Regulations 1992 - PPE is provided free and is the last line of defence; you must wear and care for it.
Worked example
A supervisor asks you to carry a labourer on the dumper's step for 150 m because 'the trek path is too long'. The machine has no passenger seat and no passenger belt. You decline and offer to move the person by site transport. The instruction does not make the act lawful: PUWER requires equipment used only for the purpose and in the manner intended, and the HSWA duty to take care of others applies regardless of who gave the order.
Traps
- Believing 'the gaffer told me to' is a defence.
- Treating the seat belt as optional for short moves or when tipping.
- Assuming RIDDOR only covers injuries that keep someone off work - dangerous occurrences count too.
- Skipping the daily check because the machine ran yesterday.