Backing Up & Spotters
Every year workers die in the blind spot of a vehicle driven by someone they'd worked beside for years. The truck doesn't know you're there — and half the time neither does the driver.
How to run it
Read it through once, then talk it — don't recite it. Five minutes at the start of the shift, crew standing where the work happens. Under O. Reg. 213/91, s. 14(3)–(4), the talk is held by a supervisor or a competent person the supervisor appoints — and the sign-in sheet is what proves it happened.
Talk through these points
- Assume the driver can't see you, because mostly they can't. Mirrors and cameras have gaps exactly where people stand.
- One spotter, agreed signals, always visible to the driver. If the driver loses sight of the spotter — stop. That's the whole rule.
- Walk around before backing. Kids' bikes, cribbing, an open trench — thirty seconds of walking beats any camera.
- High-vis worn properly, and eye contact with the operator before crossing equipment paths. A nod means seen.
- Phones down around moving equipment — a distracted pedestrian in a yard is as dangerous as a distracted driver.
- Plan deliveries so trucks pull through instead of backing where the crew works. The best backing incident is the one the site layout deleted.
Ask the crew
- Where on this site do vehicles and people share space every day?
- What are our actual hand signals — show me stop.
- Can we set the next delivery up as a pull-through?
The answers are the real talk. If a question lands on a live hazard, write it down and assign it a name and a date.
Paper it
A talk without a record didn't happen, as far as anyone who asks is concerned. Print these free:
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