joe m -

Google: OSHA SECTION 4 - IV. STUDIES OF ACCIDENT AND INJURY DATA AND TRAINING EFFECTIVENESS. The material is somewhat dated but gives you OSHA's thinking.

Personally, I don't feel that national accident/injury data can tell anything about training effectiveness. It's more a measure of random activity.

If the firm you are training had no injuries or fatalities a year prior to the training and had no injuries or fatalities a year after the training, how do you determine your training effectiveness?

To effectively measure training effectiveness one needs to measure known conditions/actions before the training and the known conditions/actions after the training to detemine if any desired changes have been made based on the training conducted.

Persons interested in developing their own performance measurement tool for forklift operations training effectiveness should Google: HSL/2005/03 - MEASURING WORKPLACE TRANSPORT SAFETY PERFORMANCE.

Joe -
I believe I have a an extra copy from the World Safety Congress. If you send me your mailing info at the email address in the signature line, I will be happy to share what information I have with you.

I am not sure why you could not get any help. At the WSC they gave out a CD with Injury / Illness Statistics, and the National Safety Council sends them out every year. It takes a while to compile the data. The one I received in 2006 was for 2004 I believe. They (the NSC) are a great information source.

It would be nice to see an overall study of lift accident reduction figures nationwide due to quality training and enforcement. If you talk with your clients where you have done any type of safety training, not just Forklift Training, they will be the first to tell you of the positive impact and reduction in WC Claims and accidents / injuries they have seen as a result of safety awareness and education.

I have spoken with both OSHA and with NIOSH and they have not offered ANY such empirical information...having referred me to the BLS website where a search turned up NOTHING useful related to powered industrial truck operator training and its affect on injuries. So, if theNational Safety Council has an article that addresses my question, I'd like to know how to get the reprint. If you have the author's contact information, that would be most helpful, too. Thank you for your help.

Joe -
The National Safety Council, OSHA and NIOSH all have the info you are looking for. OSHA also instituted a "High Hazard" Category report which has been very good at identifying where the issues are and targeted training and site programs which are showing reductions. Look at OSHA's Annual Top Violation / Citation Categories (National Safety Council devoted an issue of thier Magazine to this study and effects - OCT 2005 I think), and you will find some of the info you are looking for as well. NSC also has an annual Injury and Illness Facts that I have a copy of. I can see if there is info on it for re-order if you would like to get a copy. Just let me know.