A civil construction company has been convicted and fined $225,000 after a cyclist suffered fatal injuries when their electric bicycle struck the unfeathered edge of a steel road plate left covering a trench on a public road.

SafeWork NSW announced the conviction of NSW Kerbing Pty Ltd on 28 September 2026, following a prosecution for failing in its duty to persons other than workers. The company had placed a steel road plate over a trench as part of civil works on a public road. The edge of the plate — the junction between the plate’s surface and the road — had not been feathered or ramped, leaving a lip that posed a serious hazard to cyclists and other road users.

The cyclist, riding an electric bicycle, struck that edge. The fatal injuries that followed were the foreseeable consequence of a risk that a competent risk assessment would have identified and controlled.

The case is an important reminder of the reach of WHS obligations. Under the model Work Health and Safety Act, a PCBU owes a duty of care not only to its own workers but to other persons who may be affected by the work — including members of the public who share the space where work is being carried out. Road construction and civil works create interfaces between the worksite and the public, and the duty to manage risk extends across that entire interface.

Feathering or ramping road plates — ensuring there is no abrupt transition between the plate surface and the road — is standard industry practice precisely because unsecured or unramped edges are known to cause cycling and motorcycle accidents, including fatal ones. The failure to implement that control was not a technical oversight; it was a gap in the risk management of a foreseeable hazard.

For civil contractors, the $225,000 fine is a significant penalty. But the more significant message is the one embedded in the basis for prosecution: your duty of care does not end at your site boundary.