Forklift safety is serious business

Proper forklift-safety training will make your warehouse a safer place to work—and keep you in compliance with the law.

By William Atkinson -- Logistics Management, 5/1/2006

If you've ever had any doubts about the importance of properly training forklift drivers, the following statistics should settle the question. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, on average 100 workers are killed and 20,000 are injured each year due to forklift mishaps. The most common causes of fatalities include:

• forklift overturns (22 percent),
• pedestrian worker struck by forklift (20 percent),
• driver or employee crushed by forklift (16 percent), and
• driver fall from forklift (9 percent).

Because of such dangers, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) governs powered industrial truck safety under 29 CFR 1910.178. In 2005, citations issued for violations of this standard ranked sixth among OSHA's "Top Ten" violations. Last year OSHA cited 3,115 forklift-safety violations. The five most common were:

• failure to ensure each operator is competent to safely operate a powered industrial truck (568 violations),
• failure to certify that each operator has been trained and evaluated (399),
• failure to take damaged powered industrial trucks out of service (350),
• failure to provide refresher training and evaluation (251), and
• failure to examine powered industrial trucks before placing into service (242).

As OSHA's lists clearly show, avoiding accidents must be a top priority for any shipper that operates a warehouse or distribution center. Those lists provide one roadmap for achieving compliance. We also asked forklift-safety experts for their advice on how to make operations safer.

It should come as no surprise that most experts say that training is the most important step employers can take to improve warehouse safety: Three of the top five OSHA citations relate to driver education. "The major cause of forklift accidents is lack of proper training," confirms Pat Huebel, national training and customer-care center operations manager for Toyota Material Handling U.S.A.

OSHA's forklift-training requirements have been in effect since 1999. "Since OSHA began mandating this training, the total number of accidents has decreased, despite the fact that the number of forklifts in use has increased," says Marvin Welch, vice president, risk management, for NACCO Materials Handling Group, which manufactures Hyster products.

While it's imperative that forklift operators comply with OSHA's training requirements, it's also important that managers and supervisors undergo that same training. "These are the people who see the operators on a daily basis," says Bob Mundson, e-learning manager and operator safety manager for forklift maker Mitsubishi/Caterpillar. "If they are well trained, they can point out concerns to operators. If they aren't well trained, operators end up [making mistakes] on their own."

Effective training may require going beyond the letter of the law. That's been the experience of third-party logistics (3PL) company APL Logistics. APLL's training program addresses behaviors that aren't covered by the regulations, says Dixie Brock, national warehouse safety manager. For example, the company emphasizes keeping all parts of the body inside the forklift cage to prevent them from being crushed between the truck and storage racks when making tight turns. "This requirement may not be in any regulation, but when you analyze the accidents, you may find this is how some employees are being injured," she explains.

APLL already has a good safety record. In 2004, its OSHA "recordable" injury rate was 68 percent below the average for its classification. Since then, it has seen another 38 percent decrease in OSHA recordables, and workers-compensation claims and costs have greatly declined. But Brock believes the company can do even better. That's why APLL is working with its insurance broker, Marsh Inc., to introduce a more consistent curriculum for all of its 75 warehouses. APLL has already written a script and will also make a training video, Brock says.

What should an effective forklift-safety training program include? Experts suggest covering OSHA rules and regulations; basic operating principles affecting stability; the equipment's capabilities, limitations, and fueling/charging procedures; and how to conduct a daily safety inspection. (See "15 Steps to Forklift Safety," above.)

Of all the possible areas to address, though, two in particular require special attention. Experts we consulted offer the following suggestions:

Vehicle stability. Loads should be carried only as high as is necessary to clear floor or ramp surfaces. "Operators should keep the masts [down] in the 'traveling position' at all times," recommends Mitsubishi's Mundson.

Stability is particularly important when driving on ramps because grades can affect the vehicle's balance. "When driving up a ramp, always drive with the load first," says Huebel. "When driving down a ramp, always back down."

Huebel recommends that drivers also focus on the "stability triangle." This refers to the fact that all counterbalanced powered industrial trucks have a three-point suspension system. One point of the triangle is the truck's steer axle, which is attached by a pivot pin in the axle's center. The other two points are the left wheel and the right wheel of the non-steering axle.

Pedestrian traffic. Accidents involving pedestrians can occur any time a forklift is in motion. Common causes of pedestrian accidents in the warehouse include driving in high-traffic areas (such as near cafeterias and exits), driving without physical barriers surrounding forklift work areas, turning corners quickly when people are around the other side, and ignoring speed limits.

Common sense might suggest that horns and alarms would enhance pedestrian safety when a forklift is in motion. But research doesn't necessarily bear this out. Several years ago, NACCO became concerned about the problem of collisions between forklifts and pedestrians. The company undertook a study to determine whether attaching an audible warning device to the trucks would reduce this problem. "We fully believed that the evidence would suggest that we do come up with such a device," says Welch. "However, after reviewing the results of the study, we found no scientific evidence that alarms did or would reduce forklift-pedestrian impact accidents."

The reason that is true, Mundson suggests, is that employees get too used to hearing horns and back-up alarms. He recommends that operators use horns intermittently, so that pedestrians pay more attention to them. The first line of defense, though, is very low-tech: "Operators should always make eye contact with every pedestrian before proceeding forward or in reverse," Mundson says.

There is a lot to learn about forklift safety. (For a list of just a few of the many information resources and safety-enhancing products available, go to www.logisticsmgmt.com/safety.) But if you come away with just three key points, you will be well on your way to improving safety in your facility. First, have all drivers and supervisors properly trained in accordance with OSHA requirements. Second, be sure all drivers pay close attention to vehicle stability (the "stability triangle"). And finally, be sure all drivers pay attention to pedestrians, and that all pedestrians pay attention to the drivers!