The Industrial Truck Association (ITA) recently took the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to task for the wording of its proposed revision of the regulations for use of seatbelts in forklifts. In OSHA's draft, drivers would no longer face a citation for failing to wear a seatbelt if the risk of tipping over is "remote" under the particular circumstances of the workplace. That wording, according to ITA executive director William Montwieler, leaves too much room for interpretation.

"The instances where employers will advise their employees that they may disregard the operator restraint will not be rare, but rampant," he wrote in a response to OSHA's proposal. "In the guise of not over-regulating those hypothetical workplaces where the risk of tipover is allegedly remote, OSHA's change in policy will invite wholesale rejections of this important protection."

Montwieler further argued that the rewritten policy not only contradicts OSHA's regulation on operator training for powered industrial trucks, which requires drivers to be trained to always use seatbelts, but in effect repeals that rule.

As of press time, OSHA had made no formal decision or motion on ITA's proposal. According to Montwieler, OSHA representatives attending a standards subcommittee meeting in February reported that they were collecting information on that matter, and that OSHA would not rush into any decision. Nevertheless, Montwieler says, his association's next move will be to perhaps apply some gentle congressional pressure on OSHA to feel out whether the agency intends to move on the issue at all.

"The feeling is that OSHA is having second thoughts on this," he says. "We don't want to put a lot of pressure on them, but we do want to let them know that we do have a little congressional clout."