20
UWI TODAY
– SUNDAY 7TH DECEMBER, 2014
Just last month, Nandan Ramdass
of Longdenville was
clearing grass in his yard when a solid steel gate fell on him.
The 75-year-old died a couple agonising hours later.
In August 2014, Adita Roopchand was killed when
the 4.5m x 2.4m steel sliding gate to the family home in
Beaucarro Village slipped off its track for the second time
and fell on her.
Adita was seven, the age when children are not quite
as babyish as the under-fives, and though they strive to be
treated like the older ones, they are still playful at heart and
are apt to spontaneous actions.
Perhaps there is something about that age group that
renders them more vulnerable to giddiness, more likely to
jump on a gate while it is sliding, more likely to climb on
to it whether it is closed or swinging ajar.
In February 2013, ZuriWaleed Singh had his 3-year-old
skull crushed when a sliding metal gate (7’ x 10’ wide) fell
on him. The day before Jameel Ali, a 7-year-old student at
the ASJA Primary School in Pt Fortin was injured when the
sliding gate fell on him as he was opening it.
Just before Christmas, the family of Anthony Ali,
another 7-year-old was killed when a steel gate that was
leaning against a wall at his home, fell on him.
In that same period one other fatality was recorded
locally, and that was Sankar Gopie, who lost his life one
month before his 91st birthday, doing something that he did
every day without fail, opening the gate for his daughters
to drive into the yard.
The numbers of injuries from falling gates is around
eight for 2014, says Rodney Harnarine, a development
engineer at the Department of Mechanical &Manufacturing
Engineering at The UWI’s Engineering Faculty. He is also
on the Building Committee of the Presbyterian Primary
School Board which oversees 72 elementary schools and
five colleges.
“We’ve had accidents: three; one at Tacarigua
Presbyterian this year. A child was playing on the gate and
it came off the track and the gate fell on her; luckily it was
not too serious.” At Balmain Presbyterian it was worse. In
a similar incident, a girl was injured, “now she has medical
problems; her brain has been affected.”
He talks about the fatal incidents with Adita and Gopie
from Penal, concluding that there had been about seven or
eight accidents with gates this year alone in Trinidad.
But he notes that this is not only a local problem.
“Most gates have an electronic beam that stops the gate
if it is interrupted; is that functioning?” It has to function
perfectly or the force of the gate can crush whatever is in its
path. “But, in our cases the gates have not been motorised,”
he noted.
Still, it has raised questions about the quality of the
gates, the maintenance, and more pertinently, about the
installation process.
“The wheels need to have something to hold it and stop.”
Having investigated what happened at the primary school
in Tacarigua, he said that the clasp at the top did not hold
because it was broken, “and the gate just toppled over.” He is
convinced it was the same factor in the Balmain incident.
“There are no standards,” he said. “People just go to
welders and they construct gates and install motors and so
on. Safety needs to be enhanced. We need to set up some
kind of standards that installers must follow. When there is
an accident the installer should be held accountable.”
“The Bureau of Standards ought to add this area to their
purview,” he concludes.
Errol Rampaul, Head of the Standardization Division
of the Trinidad and Tobago Bureau of Standards (TTBS)
agreed with Harnarine, but conceded that they face many
constraints. Chief among them was the absence of national
standards and legislation regarding the construction,
PUBLIC SAFETY
fabrication or installation of driveway gates.
“However, the Regional and Municipal Corporations,
based on the Municipal Corporations Act (No 21 of 1990),
are legally responsible for regulating building construction,
i.e. approval of building plans, monitoring of construction
and issuing of completion certificates before occupation.
While at this time driveway gates are not being monitored
by the Corporations, this may be possible under the
legislation once there is agreement by the Ministry of Local
Government, the Corporations (and the legal minds) that
such gates could be considered as part of the curtilage of
the building,” he advised.
Standards are also generally voluntary, so enforcement
falls largely to the industry itself, and self-regulation has
been largely a lax affair. But while standards are initially
voluntary, he said they can be accorded compulsory
status by the minister responsible for trade and industry
on the recommendation of the TTBS. In theory, he said,
the TTBS can formulate a standard for driveway gates
and have it accorded compulsory status due to health and
safety concerns, but the reality is that since there is another
regulatory body (the regional corporations), they would not
be able to enforce it.
“The best option here will be for TTBS to formulate
a voluntary standard with inputs from the industry
stakeholders including the regional corporations, fabricators,
etc; the standard can then be adopted and enforced by the
regional corporations under the Municipal Corporation
Act – once there is agreement by the various entities and
the legal minds,” he said.
It would not fall under the OSH Act, despite concerns
about health and safety, because his interpretation is that the
“OSH Act and the OSH Agency were established primarily
to deal with occupational health and safety, i.e. issues relating
to the workplace. Even if the driveway gate is installed in
Falling gates
Who is responsible when they come crashing down?
B y V a n e i s a B a k s h
a business compound, it is still the Regional Corporation
which will have to issue the completion certificate.”
Given that standards worldwide are generally voluntary,
they are promoted by industry associations. “In such
societies, litigation by consumers, advocate groups and
even manufacturers ensure that delinquent players are
weeded out,” he said. “In our society (built on a colonial
past), legal enforcement has proven to be the most
effective method but for practical reasons cannot always
be employed. For instance, it would require a small army of
people to adequately enforce even a fraction of all national
standards.”
He said that in this specific area, “compliance to
voluntary standards could be made one of the pre-requisites
for obtaining approval of building plans and completion
certificates.”
His recommendation with regard to driveway gates?
“Determine which government agency would be the
most effective regulator for ensuring driveway gate safety
(we believe that it is the Ministry of Local Government
and specifically the Regional Corporations since they fall
under the MOLG); this would be done in consultation
with the various stakeholders and government agencies.
Then identify the causes of the problems leading to unsafe
driveway gates and develop national standards or codes
of practices to address these problems and or practices.
Finally, have the regulating agency incorporate the
voluntary standard or code of practice within its regulatory
framework, sensitize the public and begin enforcing these
requirements nationally.”
In the meantime, it falls to the consumer to ensure
that they exercise great diligence in selecting competent
fabricators and installers for their gates and to regularly
check that all the components are functioning properly, and
to be vigilant, especially when children are around.
