These problems are worldwide.
Trainers can train but until supervisors, managers and health and safety personel work together and enforce the methods taught in training the problems will persist.

there is no point in training if all the rules get broken when the operator returns to the workplace.

The best electrical/engineering solution is offered by TECNA2000 a specialist Spanish forklift supplier but few people have heard of them.

Check out www.tecna2000.com.

rgds

An employer can have the best trained individual driving his forklift and that individual can be having a bad day. A fight with his spouse, short night of sleep, or thinking of the coming weekend can distract someone from the safety of day to day work.
There is a product on the market called SpeedShield that can set maximum travel speeds based on mast lift height and weight of the load it is carrying.
SpeedShield can slow the vehicle down as it approaches a pedestrian cross walk and automatically sound the horn. It can require he has his seat belt fastened around him before he can drive the forklift. It can slow him down and sound an alarm as he approaches an overhead obsticle if his mast is too high.

Speedshield does not replace training, it reinforces safe forklift operating practices. As one of my customers says "safety is no accident!" SpeedShield is the solution.

bryan n:

I have to place the number one cause of forklift accidents on a universal lack of management involvement in the development and implementation of forklift safety programs. This includes risk assessment, hazard analysis, equipment selection, operator selection, safety training at all levels (department managers, supervisors, forklift operators, pedestrians, contractors) operating policies, operating procedures, work force supervision, accountability, equipment maintenance, workplace layout and environment, etc.

The only way to rectify it is to train managers in what is involved in safe forklift operations and to hold management personally accountable for failure to implement sound forklift safety programs. This has to be a collaborative effort of occupational safety and health regulators, insurance carriers, equipment manufacturers, equipment vendors, forklift training organizations, business organizations, employee organizations, etc.

It is a daunting task that is easier to define than to accomplish!

If you could say the one thing that causes forklift accidents... beyond driver error, i.e if you had the perfect driver. What would be that cause. and what would be your idea to rectify it.

chris w:

Forklift speed limiting devices allow an employer to establish an arbitrary maximum forklift speed. The maximum speed selected does not mean that any of the permissible speeds are safe for the driving conditions.

Speed limiting devices are usually installed as a reaction to perceived excessive speeds by companies that are not willing to address the issue through proper supervision and discipline.

The Fork Lift Truck Association's (FLTA) cartoon posted in the Fork Talk section of Forkliftaction.com (Thursday, 25 January 2007 - Safety campaign "not rocket science") sums it up. The caption reads: "A truck doesn't have to be packed with gadgets to be safe."

Obviousily you live in a very perfect world! Free from the influences of human nature, stress or other outside demands that cause normally COMPETENT OPERATORS to make poor decisions.

We all act differently when we are under the supervision or direct control of others. Employers live under the constant fear of being sued or fined into oblivion. When an employer has a proactive means at thier disposal to control a known and recoginized hazard, they would be very foolish not to give that very careful consideration.

I can promise you that any attempt to be proactive before the accident will be greatly more effective than all the reactive actions to mount a defense after the accident!

Speed limiting devices that can sense load weight, road conditions, and other variables and compensate for them could add to forklift safety. Speed limiting devices, however, will never fully satisfy the OSHA speed/braking performance requirement. Speed limiting devices stop the operator from exceeding a certain designated rate of speed. Speed limiting devices do not guarantee that the allowable speed is safe for travel conditions.

OSHA 1910.178(n)(8): "Under all travel conditions the truck shall be operated at a speed that will permit it to be brought to a stop in a safe manner."

OSHA compliance requires a COMPETENT OPERATOR that is alert, knowledgeable of his/her equipment and its capabilities, knowledgeable of the environment and the driving conditions, and knowledgeable of forklift and load dynamics.

A COMPETENT OPERATOR does not need a speed limiting device.