Carlos, I am with you on this, and congratulate you on your courage to "take on" your management armed with principles that would certainly impress the more senior managers.

You've brought up a "human performance issue" that will only be resolved, in my opinion, by getting someone with enough organizational authority to "do right" by your operators. This may mean that such an authority has the formal power to eat the bad capital investment, and get the right trucks into place. I suggest that those who are "only concerned with the cost" or are unconcerned with the issue of limbs outside the vehicle, probably NEVER operated a forklift...or were NEVER accountable for the safety of others. In my book, if you are the one charged with making such decisions, and you do not do the right thing, you deserve to be labeled as a caloused human being with wonton disregard for people who have to operate trucks that you've provided.

What gives such a person the right to make such decisions when THEY are NOT the one who will be injured or killed while operating the truck? If I were an operator, I would resent that my "large" and probably profitable company is allowing this situation to undermine my ability to stay injury free. Something is surely wrong with this situation! I wager that the Board of Directors, or even responsible stockholders, would NOT want this situation to exist. Perhaps it would be effective to appeal to someone who has such clout. It is about doing the right thing... as embarrasing as it might be for the original "deciding manager" to take some lumps. Good luck trying to resolve this.

In the future, BEFORE buying new makes or models of trucks, I will make it my practice to recommend that an organizational policy be put in place that requires real operators to be able to pass a validated on-truck operator test in the environment where the new model truck might be used. This would save you and other companies making new fleet purchases a repeat of the pain such lack of policy causes. For more information on this type of operator test, surf the internet with keyword LIFTOR. Best wishes.