An East Yorkshire quarry operator has been fined £30,000 after a 30-tonne wheel loader vehicle overturned and slid almost 16ft down a sand stockpile.
Humberside Aggregates and Excavations, of North Cave, pleaded guilty to three separate breaches of the Quarries Regulations 1999 and was also made to pay £10,590 in costs.
Beverly Magistrates Court heard how an employee, who does not wish to be named, was being trained as a wheel loader operator at the quarry when the access ramp edge he was driving on gave way.
The machine then overturned and slid 16ft down the sandpile because there were no edge protection barriers in place.
Richard Noble, Health and Safety Executive (HSE) inspector, said: "This accident could have been avoided had sufficient edge protection been put in place at minimal cost, which has been the standard within the quarrying industry for many years."
Since the launch of the quarry industry's Hard Target initiative in 2000, it has achieved a 77 per cent reduction in accidents up to 2008/09.