Forklift News - David Hoover: Safety behind the seatbelt

When I was a kid in the 1970s I never worried much about seatbelts or what might happen if I didn't wear one. When I became a teenager in the 1980s it was still not a big deal, since I was used to motorcycles and tractors that didn't even have them.

In the 1990s it became law in certain parts of the US that you had to wear a belt or risk a fine. Once again no big deal since I could afford the fine. Only when my wife pointed out to me what a bad example I was setting for our new baby boy, did I change my habits.

She told me "if he gets hurt or killed because he sees you not wearing your belt and does the same, I will never forgive you". I started wearing my belt that day, and only a few years later it saved my life in a serious head-on accident. While I was not at fault, I would have been killed without the belt.

I do not know all the regulations across the globe or how people react to seatbelts abroad, but I can tell you how it is here in the US. OSHA does not mention the word "seatbelt" in 29CFR1910.178, which is the US forklift standard. But they do mention having to train the operators via the contents of the operator's manual, which these days almost always has instructions regarding seatbelt use. They also have several letters of interpretation, which say some basic things:

1) Any unit manufactured with a belt better have one as good or better in place.
2) If a belt was not provided, then you should be contacting the maker and asking if a retrofit is available to make your lift safer. If they do offer a belt then you must take advantage of the offer. On a side note, older electric units need to have the battery firmly secured before the operator is belted in, otherwise the sliding battery might kill the operator in a tip over situation.
3) OSHA will enforce the use of seatbelts through their "general duty" clause.

Ignore these basic rules and you could be liable for a fine. "Big deal", you might say. In the US about 25 per cent of the 100-plus fatalities involve a tip over situation. We see and hear so many statistics that we forget that these are 25 real people who did not have to die! They were all someone's dad, mom, brother, sister or friend.

I have heard many stories about people getting killed or horribly injured as the result of being on forklifts that didn't have belts, or they were simply not wearing the belt that was fitted.

On the other hand, I have never heard of an incident where a person who was wearing a belt was killed, or that anyone was more seriously injured as the result of wearing a belt.

This should be a wake up call for companies, trainers and operators around the world to start wearing and enforcing the use of belts, because the life you save might be your own, or your friend's or your child's.

David Hoover is president of Forklift Training Systems Inc, a US safety company specialising in site and forklift safety training, training trainers, custom program development and cutting-edge forklift safety products. Contact David Hoover

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