Pedestrian worker injury: NSW workers compensation guide

Pedestrian worker injury can occur through vehicle impact while completing a delivery, inspection, collection or employer-directed crossing and collision in a depot, car park, loading area or customer access road. The incident history should identify the task, equipment, location and sequence of events rather than relying on the job title alone.

People commonly exposed include postal, delivery and field workers on foot and workers crossing roads between work locations. Employment records should identify each person's task, employer and position in the work area when the incident occurred.

Medical records after a pedestrian worker injury may identify head, spinal, fracture, knee and shoulder injury and crush or internal injury after vehicle contact. Each diagnosis should be linked to the event or exposure and to the worker's actual functional change.

For a pedestrian worker injury, the first evidence to preserve includes job allocation, route, delivery or inspection task, roster, employer messages and precise timing and police event number, vehicle registration and CTP details, scene photographs, CCTV or traffic-camera preservation and witnesses. It is most useful when dates, people, equipment, duties and later medical histories tell a consistent account.

• GPS or phone location where lawfully available, pedestrian route, crossing point, lighting, sight lines and weather.
• Site traffic plan, barriers, exclusion zones, spotter, radio and mobile-plant records where the incident occurred in a work area.
• Ambulance, hospital and early clinical records identifying direct contact, evasive movement, impact points and all later diagnoses.

After a pedestrian worker injury, an insurer may dispute the worker is said to have been on a personal errand or ordinary commute rather than performing the identified task and driver fault is treated as if it determines the separate workers compensation employment-connection test. The written decision should be answered with evidence directed to those stated reasons.

Hospital and specialist evidence should record each affected body system, direct and indirect impact, and the progression of symptoms. Psychological treatment, gait rehabilitation and road-exposure tolerance should be addressed separately where supported by diagnosis and functional evidence. If treatment is disputed after a pedestrian worker injury, the request should explain the accepted diagnosis, expected functional benefit and reasonable alternatives.

Work capacity after a pedestrian worker injury may turn on walking distance, carrying, balance, road exposure, concentration and response to traffic can affect suitable field work and return to roadside or mobile duties should specify routes, crossings, traffic controls, accompaniment and residual cognitive or psychological symptoms. Proposed duties must be compared with the real task demands and the worker's ability to sustain them for the proposed hours.

WPI is assessed from stable, accepted medical impairment under the applicable NSW method; travel, collision, surgery or imaging does not create an automatic percentage. Each diagnosed body system must be assessed using its own clinical findings, and any pre-existing impairment issue must be addressed separately. Any WPI assessment after a pedestrian worker injury occurs after stabilisation under the NSW method for the accepted body system; the accident or surgery alone does not determine a percentage.

A qualifying NSW motor accident may require a separate CTP claim; SIRA includes pedestrians among people who can apply after a motor crash. A premises or worksite controller may raise a separate recovery issue where the hazard was not a qualifying motor accident. These issues are separate from workers compensation and depend on the particular facts.

For a pedestrian worker injury, assistance may involve classify the walking movement as a work duty, section 10 journey or personal activity before applying the legal test and preserve work allocation, route, police, vehicle, CCTV, traffic-plan and medical evidence promptly. The purpose is to identify the disputed decision and the evidence needed for the next step, not to promise an outcome.