Human error may play a key role in most forklift accidents but if that be so then indifference, ignorance and commercial pressures are its handmaidens. The forklift manufacturers and their allied equipment suppliers are to be complimented on doing everything feasible to make their trucks safe, through innovations like Toyota’s SAS for improved stability to security codes that will only allow adequately trained and authorised drivers to operate the trucks. The onus, therefore, lies with supervisory managers to cut the 800-plus truck accidents in the UK every year but how can one expect much improvement there when evidence suggest that over half of those responsible for truck safety have neither driven a forklift or had any kind of formal training?
Such laxity is given even more weight when considering much safer, non-powered, smaller handling trucks like hand pallet trucks and trolleys, which account for over 4,500 injuries every year, yet findings from Mentor Training’s test, devised with the Fork Lift Truck Association (FLTA), showed that more than half of the 1,300 managers, supervisors, operators and pedestrians who took part did not identify correct operation of a hand pallet truck as a hazard. Yet these trucks are covered by the same legal requirements as forklifts for safety training. Regulation nine of the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations, 1998, requires that those operating any kind of work equipment should be trained to use it, understand the risks involved and take the necessary precautions. It also specifies that supervisors/managers should receive similar training. One of the most common errors with hand pallet trucks is pushing instead of pulling.
Many of the reported forklift accidents are to be found among the SMEs where funds for adequate outside training may be more difficult to justify, yet even among the large companies there seems to be a reluctance to spend on training, despite the many examples that show how training is one of the best investments they could make. One retail chain, for example, invested £50,000 in training and immediately cut its rack damage costs by £130,000 every year. Until investing in forklift training, another large company had been tolerant of £3 million of racking damage from trucks every year. Extrapolated nationally, these damage figures probably reach hundreds of millions of pounds every year but the injury costs are beyond measure because a price cannot be put on a life ruined by permanent disability.
For those wishing to improve their truck safety record a good first step would be to visit the FLTA website and explore the “Fork Lift Safety” tab, where each month the website will publish practical steps to move forward through its step-by-step safety programme, launched last year. It is supported by free fact sheets, posters and safety resources and there are pointers to the right places for further guidance. Every business using forklifts should also have a copy of the HSE publication, L117, which outlines 10 pieces of information regarding the use of industrial trucks and the approved code of practice.
Businesses should not only be aware that at certain times of the year, like the run-up to Christmas, there will be more accidents but also apply full measures when taking on agency staff, who could be 12 times as likely to cause an accident as full-time staff. Employers have the same duty of care to temporary agency staff as the long-term staff and it is not enough to rely on agency checks or training credentials of the staff trained overseas because these licences offer no certainty of training capabilities. A practical skills assessment for new staff is the safest approach.
No amount of legislation and guidance will be enough, however, if management succumb to the temptation to cut corners to meet challenging goods despatch times. This is probably a major cause of accidents. And nor should management ignore the importance of passive safety devices that will enhance forklift safety. These include proper signage and floor markings to segregate drivers from pedestrians, hemispheric mirrors that will allow seeing around corners and adequate lighting for drivers of all ages because a 60-year old driver needs six times as much light as a 20-year old to discern objects clearly.
An area of special attention must always be the loading bay, the most dangerous part of any warehouse. Forklifts can be involved in many accidents here which have nothing to do with the trucks or poorly trained drivers and practices. Many have been the times when, for example, a lorry has left the loading dock prematurely simply because of poor locking procedures, sending the forklift and driver plunging over the dock edge.
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