Forklift safety practices
vary, survey discovers
Oct 20, 2008 9:55 AM
Limb, pedestrian, and other worker injuries seem to be the most common safety problem associated with lift trucks, found a recently completed survey on lift truck safety by the International Association of Refrigerated Warehouses (IARW).
To help prevent these injuries, 46% of respondents said they use deadman switches (a feature that prevents riderless runaway vehicles), 25% use barriers, and 14% use light curtains.
Asked if they have a policy on the direction in which lift trucks should be operated, 10% of those replying to the survey said their policy is forks-first, 21% have a forks-trailing policy, and 69% of respondents use both approaches.
Survey results revealed that lift truck training varies widely. Some 38% of respondents provide three hours of training or less on each different piece of equipment, while 28% provide 13 hours or more of similar training.
