Warehouse directors have a tendency to assume their site is the exception. But, of course, not only is this logically impossible, but HSE’s own figures say otherwise too. Struck-by-vehicle is Britain’s second most common cause of workplace death, and pedestrian warning signage for industrial walkways is where the fix starts.
The numbers behind the warning
HSE’s most recent RIDDOR figures, covering 2025/26, found 126 workplace deaths in Great Britain and 24 of them were workers struck by a moving vehicle. It came second, just behind falls from height (31) and ahead of being struck by a falling object (21) or crushed by something collapsing or overturning (18). That alone should drive home to directors how to think about floor-level risk, especially when height-and-harness conversation often take over the site safety budgets. They’re really not that far apart when it comes to risk and deadly consequences.
It’s hardly a one-off either. As many managers will be aware, over the five years from 2020/21 onwards, an average of 15 workers a year were killed by a moving vehicle in the workplace, with 14 recorded in 24/25 specifically. We are yet to see if this goes up or down off the back of more self-driving vehicles.
The number clearly moves within a pretty narrow band year to year, so we know what to expect for the most part. It shows this is not a run of bad luck but a design problem. It’s the sort that a site layout either controls for or doesn’t, rather than something that can be trained away after.
Warehouses and distribution sites tend to carry this risk harder than most workplaces, and it’s because forklifts and visiting drivers, along with pedestrians, share the same floor space each shift. And they’re doing so constantly, meaning it’s not just confined to one or two crossing points the way an office car park might be. Loading bays, racking aisles and goods-in areas are all hotspots where vehicle and foot traffic overlap the most yet it’s where reaction time is the shortest.
What the law actually requires
The obligation behind this isn’t vague nor is it aspirational of any kind. Regulation 17 needs every single workplace to be organised so that pedestrians and vehicles can circulate safely, with traffic routes both suitable and sufficient so that people and vehicles actually use them.
It doesn’t spoon-fed you just one method for getting there though. It requires the outcome, which puts the burden on the site to demonstrate that safe circulation is actually happening day to day, not just documented once in a policy folder and left there.
What happens when it isn’t gets super expensive – and super fast. Three UK prosecutions in 2024 followed fatalities where pedestrian-vehicle segregation had either never existed properly or had quietly degraded over time without anyone flagging it. CF Booth was fined £1.2 million, Samworth Brothers/Ginsters £1.28 million, and Ward Recycling £1.75 million, all for corporate manslaughter.
None of those sums were about one missing sign in isolation though, they were about systems that looked proper on paper yet failed on the yard floor. A site that can’t show clear, visible warning at its pedestrian crossings is exactly the kind of thing an HSE inspector, or a court afterwards, reads as evidence that the wider system wasn’t being actively managed either. It’s not the only thing, but it’s a huge giveaway that the whole operation wasn’t safe enough. So it’s the visible failure which invites the closer look at everything else.
Where signage fits and where it doesn’t stand alone
Signage has a hyper specific and legally recognised job. It communicates the rule that the physical layout is supposed to enforce (though, to be clear, it can also just provide general nudges to certain low-level hazards, it’s not always about hard rules). HSE guidance and the PAS 13:2017 code of practice for workplace traffic barriers purposeful about this distinction, that painted floor markings and warning signs are informational controls. They tell a pedestrian or a forklift driver where the boundary is. It’s intuitive. But importantly, they don’t physically stop either of them from crossing it. Physical barriers are treated as the main way to control all settings except low-speed, low-volume areas with clear sightlines in all directions, which most working warehouse floors with racking and blind corners are not. Especially when you throw in reversing vehicles.
The point isn’t that signage is optional or unimportant. It’s just that it’s a very specific part rather than the whole answer on its own. And, to remember that workplace traffic signs should match the conventions already used on public roads wherever a suitable sign exists, precisely because workers already recognise that visual language from daily life outside the gate. Inventing a new one adds a friction in how quickly it can be identified, especially by new workers and visitors – the two prime suspects for causing accidents, lets not forget.
