A banksman, often called a vehicle marshal or traffic marshal, guides vehicles and mobile plant so that they can move safely at work. Together, these are known as workplace transport.
The Health and Safety Executive, or HSE, recognises workplace transport as a major cause of serious and fatal injuries. Reversing, poor visibility, and poor separation of vehicles and pedestrians are among the biggest hazards.
This course gives you the knowledge behind the banksman role: the law, how employers manage vehicle risks, the standard signals, visibility aids, and personal protective equipment.
Knowledge alone is not enough. Before you act as a banksman, your employer must also give you practical, site-specific training in the vehicles, the layout and the rules of your own workplace. This course supports that training, and is a useful refresher for experienced banksmen.
In this module you will learn about:
This course covers far more than ordinary road vehicles. As well as cars, vans, lorries and articulated lorries with trailers, it includes mobile plant such as forklift trucks, excavators, dumpers, telehandlers, tractors, and specialist machines like the straddle carriers used at docks.
Throughout the course, the phrase vehicles and mobile plant means all of these.
Banksmen work in many places: warehouses, factories, construction sites, farms, forestry, docks, depots and retail delivery yards.
Normal traffic on public roads is covered by road traffic law, not by this course. However, the course does apply when a public road becomes a temporary workplace, for example during refuse collection, roadworks, or the recovery of a broken-down vehicle.
When a public road becomes a temporary workplace, the banksman faces two sources of danger at once: the works vehicles you are guiding, and the passing traffic that is not under your control. Roadworks should be set up under a planned traffic management layout, with signs, cones and barriers that separate the work area from the live carriageway. Guide works vehicles in and out only at the planned entry and exit points, and only when the traffic management allows it.
Never step into the live lane to stop public traffic unless you are specifically trained and authorised to do so under the site's arrangements. Choose a position inside the protected area where the driver can see you and where you are not exposed to passing vehicles. Watch for members of the public on foot or on bicycles who may try to walk through the works. If the layout is damaged or cones have been knocked over, stop the movement and report it before work continues.
Refuse collection is one of the clearest examples of a public road becoming a workplace. Collection vehicles stop and start constantly, often in narrow streets with parked cars, pedestrians and children nearby, and reversing is a major cause of serious accidents in this work. The first step is to plan rounds so that reversing is avoided, for example by collecting from the end of a cul-de-sac on foot instead of reversing into it.
Where a reverse cannot be avoided, a trained crew member may act as a reversing assistant. Stand to the side of the vehicle, never directly behind it, and stay visible in the driver's mirror throughout. Keep members of the public clear, and stop the vehicle at once if anyone walks behind it. Crew members must never ride on the outside of the vehicle or step down while it is moving. The same principles apply to other rounds, such as deliveries and vehicle recovery: plan the stop, control the space, and stay visible.
Employers and others in control of sites must assess the risks from vehicle movements, and put controls in place. The most effective controls change the site itself: separate routes for people and vehicles, one-way systems that avoid reversing, barriers, signs, speed limits and good lighting.
A banksman is used only when these physical controls cannot make the operation safe on their own. A banksman is not the first choice. It is an extra control for the risk that remains.
In Great Britain, the main law is the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974. It requires employers to manage work so that employees, and anyone else affected, are protected, including from vehicle and plant movements.
The employer has overall legal responsibility for making sure that controls are in place to keep drivers and pedestrians safe. Employees must take reasonable care, co-operate with their employer, and use equipment as they have been trained.
Under the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999, every employer must carry out a suitable and sufficient risk assessment. With five or more employees, the significant findings must be recorded.
For workplace transport, this means planning vehicle movements, protecting pedestrians, and arranging supervision and communication. Because transport risks are so serious, many sites carry out a separate transport risk assessment.
The Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992 require workplaces to be organised so that pedestrians and vehicles can move safely.
Traffic routes must be suitable for the people and vehicles using them, kept in good condition, and laid out to separate vehicles from pedestrians wherever reasonably practicable.
A visiting driver may arrive focused on a delivery slot, a load or a waiting queue. They may not know that a pedestrian gate opens onto the yard, that a route changes near a loading bay, or that a reversing zone is temporarily closed. Before directing a movement, make sure the driver has received the site information needed for that task. Use a map, translated briefing, clear signs or pictures where these help understanding. Ask the driver to explain the route and stop point back in their own words.
A signature alone does not show that a message has been understood. If the driver is unsure, pause and arrange an interpreter or another effective explanation. No vehicle should begin a guided manoeuvre while either person is still guessing about the route.
On construction sites, the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015 add further duties for traffic routes, vehicles and plant.
Construction work needs extra planning and co-ordination, because plant, delivery vehicles, contractors and pedestrians share the same space, and the layout, hazards and traffic patterns can change from day to day.
The Health and Safety (Safety Signs and Signals) Regulations 1996 require safety signs and signals wherever risks remain after other controls, and set out the standard hand signals and verbal signals.
In this course, we call these simply the Signs and Signals Regulations. You will learn the signals themselves in Module 3.
Under the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998, vehicles and mobile plant used at work must be suitable for the task and maintained in a safe condition. Road vehicles must also meet the Road Vehicles (Construction and Use) Regulations 1986.
As the person guiding these vehicles, you need to understand their limits and blind spots, so that you can stop an unsafe movement straight away.
The HSE publishes guidance on workplace transport safety, and on the safety signs and signals requirements. It explains how routes, separation of people and vehicles, supervision, vehicle condition and communication work together to control transport risks.
Your employer should use this guidance when planning vehicle operations, and it supports the signals you will use as a banksman.
A hand signal controls one part of a movement; the safe system around it controls the task as a whole. Before work starts, identify who authorises the movement, who gives instructions, which people are excluded, and how an interruption is handled. The method should cover the vehicle, load, ground, route, destination and nearby work. It should also describe how the operation is left safe if the banksman or driver has to stop.
On a busy site, two teams may be working within each other’s reach, so their supervisors need to coordinate timings and boundaries. A banksman should not silently accept a changed load, route or vehicle because the original briefing is out of date. Report the change, pause, and get the method reviewed by someone with authority to do so.
Your main job is to guide a vehicle or machine whenever the driver or operator needs help from outside to move safely, and to keep other people out of the danger area.
Reversing is the most common example. Guidance is also needed when:
Nobody may act as a banksman unless they have been properly trained. Practical, site-specific training is essential, covering the site layout, the vehicles and plant in use, and the signals agreed on site.
Training can be given by an outside provider or in-house. Either way, the trainer must be competent in the types of operation carried out, the vehicles used, and the site layout.
Directing cranes and lifting operations needs separate slinger signaller training, and is outside this course.
To work safely, a banksman must:
Never stand where you could be trapped between a vehicle and a wall, another vehicle or a fixed object. Safe standing positions should be identified in the transport risk assessment and shown to you during your induction.
If the driver loses sight of you at any point, they must stop the vehicle immediately.
On some sites, such as quarries with very large earth-moving machines, banksmen are banned or strictly limited, because the driver cannot reliably see a person on foot.
In this module, you have learned that:
A banksman guides vehicles and mobile plant, and keeps people out of the danger area, when physical site controls cannot make the work safe on their own.
The employer has overall legal responsibility for transport safety. Workers must co-operate and follow their training.
You must be trained for your site, stand where the driver can always see you, and the driver must stop if they lose sight of you.
In the next module, we will look at how employers manage vehicles and mobile plant safely.