ECG — 2025-05-02
News from ECG
A newly released report from ECG, the Association of European Vehicle Logistics, shows fewer severe incidents during loading and unloading of vehicles in 2024. Although incidents and accidents are rare, there are still too many.
The report ”Making the Industry Safer—Reducing Accidents in Finished Vehicle Logistics (FVL)” was presented at a webinar organised by the ECG earlier this week. This is the fifth annual report featuring statistics on incidents in the FVL industry related to the safe loading and unloading of vehicles from car carriers. Member companies report incidents to an ECG website developed in 2018. The companies that regularly use the website represent over 40% of the member companies’ fleet.
”We want to improve driver safety. The more incidents we record, the more accurate evaluations can be made to understand what we can improve. We are pleased to state that the number of severe incidents has decreased since last year,” says Jovana Vancevska, Research & Projects manager at ECG.
The high risk incidents are categorised into Slips & trips, Roll-offs, Drive-offs, Falls from height, and Collisions.
Philippe Nelain, Global Risk Manager at Renault Group, is the chairman of the subgroup ”Incident reporting,” which is connected to the Health & Safety Working group. ”The report for 2024 shows that there has been little change in the number of incidents recorded in the tool. However, a closer look shows that the number of serious accidents has fallen, while the number of near-misses has risen. Recording the latter is just as important as for accidents, as it enables us to analyse the causes and recommend preventive action”, says Philippe Nelain.
In 2024, 125 incidents were reported, of which 113 were analysed as related to loading and unloading operations. Serious incidents decreased to 12% in 2024 compared to 26% in 2023. Near misses increased to 35% in 2024 compared to 19% in 2023.
Philippe Nelain: ”We note that many accidents are linked to human error due to a lack of knowledge of the rules, but also to the new technologies incorporated into today's vehicles (e.g. handbrake operation on certain electric cars, right-hand drive, etc.). A priority action in 2025 must be to train drivers in these new vehicles.”.
”The second most significant cause seems to be the deterioration of some of the lorries' equipment, in particular the safety cables used to prevent falls from a height. The other priority action for 2025 is therefore to guarantee the maintenance of equipment and the ability of drivers to detect faults (pre-use check).”
Slips & trips remain the most common incidents, accounting for half of the incidents in 2024. The second most common incidents are Roll-offs, which have increased slightly, followed by Falls from height.
The 2024 report also indicates a slight rise in Collisions in the yard during loading and unloading. The report also says something about why the incidents happen. Several incidents involving Slips & trips occurred when the driver exited the vehicle and grabbed the safety poles, which in some cases were old and rusty. This emphasises the importance of maintaining the equipment. Drivers are advised to regularly check the safety poles on the car carrier´s upper deck and remember that they are not designed to support the driver´s weight. Some of these incidents resulted in a fall from a height.
”Incidents involving roll-offs are most likely to happen when drivers forget to apply the parking brake when exiting the car and follow 3 step rule that is stipulated in our loading Guideline” says Jovana Vancevska.
There have been no fatal or unrecoverable incidents reported in 2024.
Jovana Vancevska emphasises the importance of increasing member reports of incidents and ensuring that the reporting remains anonymous. The data is analysed and transformed into valuable information that directly contributes to drivers' safety.
Philippe Nelain: ”We urge companies to continue reporting all incidents/accidents in the database, recording as much information as possible about the causes. Photos are also important to illustrate the circumstances.”
Obviously, there are many more incidents than are reported, but the report's results were quite similar to those of a quick inquiry conducted with the 65-70 webinar participants. The participants were asked whether their company experienced more or fewer loading and unloading incidents and near misses in 2024 compared to 2023. 42% reported having fewer incidents, which effectively reflects the study's findings. When asked what type of incidents were the most common when loading/unloading, 85% answered Slips and trips, 38% Collision, and 31% Roll-offs.
The importance of driver training and adopting the ECG Guidelines-Safe Loading process, a illustrating step-by-step guideline on safe loading and unloading on a car carrier, must be prioritised.
The report “Make the Industry Safer—Reducing Accidents in Finished Vehicle Logistics (FVL)” and the the incident reporting website are available here.