A council has been fined £40,000 after a subcontractor suffered severe crush injuries when a tar tipper lorry reversed into a paver machine he was driving while carrying out road repairs.
Dumfries Sheriff Court heard that the 20-year-old was one of two subcontractors working for Hamilton Tarmac alongside men from Dumfries and Galloway Council to undertake repairs on a road between the villages of Rhonehouse and Tongland in April 2010.
The injured worker was driving the paver forwards along the road followed by a reversing tipper lorry driven by a council employee.
Hamilton Tarmac's employee noticed the tipper was gaining on his slower moving vehicle but before he could sound his horn to alert the tipper lorry driver to his presence it struck the paver.
The lorry struck the operator safety rail to the rear of the paver, buckling it and moving it forward over the platform on which the subcontractor had been standing, trapping him between the rail and a control panel.
