A Victorian taxi company has been fined over the separate 2021 deaths of two passengers who used wheelchairs.<\/p>\n
The Echuca Moama Taxi Group (EMTG) was sentenced today in the County Court of Victoria after pleading guilty in April to breaching the Occupational Health and Safety Act.<\/p>\n
EMTG admitted wheelchair-using passengers could be exposed to a risk of death or serious injury if the wheelchair tie-down and occupant restraint system was not properly secured.<\/p>\n
The prosecution arose from the death of 63-year-old Christine Looney, whose wheelchair, which was not properly secured, tipped backwards during a routine trip in Echuca in February 2021.<\/p>\n
Ms Looney became trapped after the taxi accelerated from an intersection.<\/p>\n
Despite efforts by the driver, bystanders and emergency services, she died after her airway was obstructed by the position of her head.<\/p>\n
Four months later 75-year-old John Phyland was seriously injured in a similar incident during a trip home from dialysis treatment.<\/p>\n
He suffered a fractured sternum and died a week later from complications.<\/p>\n
Mr Phyland’s death was not the subject of the charge, but Judge Justin Lewis said it was relevant to understanding the risks posed when wheelchair restraints were not correctly fitted.<\/p>\n
The court heard wheelchair-accessible taxi drivers were required to secure passengers using a Wheelchair Tie-Down and Occupant Restraint System.<\/p>\n
Australian Standards specify how the restraints should be fitted.<\/p>\n
EMTG admitted it failed to provide adequate ongoing refresher training and assessment to ensure drivers remained competent in correctly securing passengers who used wheelchairs.<\/p>\n
Following Ms Looney’s death, WorkSafe issued a prohibition notice preventing the taxi involved from operating until it was certified safe.<\/p>\n
The court heard the company subsequently introduced refresher training for drivers, updated its daily vehicle checklists and arranged further product familiarisation training on correctly securing wheelchair restraints.<\/p>\n
Judge Lewis accepted the company had systems in place to transport wheelchair-using passengers safely and said there was no indication it had acted in a “cavalier” manner.<\/p>\n
However, he said refresher training was an “obvious” and low-cost measure that could have reduced the risk of serious injury or death.<\/p>\n
“The need for refresher training is of fairly obvious significance,” Judge Lewis said.<\/p>\n
He described the case as complex, noting failures involving wheelchair restraints were relatively rare but the consequences when they occurred could be catastrophic.<\/p>\n
“Both incidents illustrate what can occur, even at low speed, when errors are made in securing wheelchair passengers,” Judge Lewis said.<\/p>\n
He said the company’s guilty plea demonstrated responsibility and remorse and should be treated as an early plea because of the complexity of the case.<\/p>\n
Judge Lewis said the sentence needed to send a message to employers about the importance of meeting health and safety obligations, particularly where vulnerable members of the public were at risk.<\/p>\n
Echuca Moama Taxi Group was fined $133,828.<\/p>\n
Without the “early” plea, Judge Lewis said he could have imposed a fine of $190,000.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Victorian taxi company has been fined over the separate 2021 deaths of two passengers who used wheelchairs.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":762279,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[363713,152653,363709,363710,43,44,363711,41,39,42,40,363712],"class_list":["post-762278","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-accessible-taxi-service","tag-county-court","tag-echuca-moama-taxi-group","tag-echuca-wheelchair-taxi-death","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-taxi-deaths-echuca-moama","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-wheelschair-restrainst-for-cars"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/762278","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=762278"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/762278\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/762279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=762278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=762278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=762278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}