Hi Scots33

Yes you are being too hard on them. I investigate fatalities and serious injuries.

In road safety there has been for some time the enlightened view that if a driver makes a mistake they should not die or suffer serious injury as a result. So a lot of work is going progressively into making the roadside forgiving, and inproving the crashworthiness of vehicles.

It is my view that the same should apply in respect of all safety situations including the operation of forklifts. And that is definitely not the case. And as a result very experienced and/or very safety conscious die or are seriously injured, or cause others to be seriously injured. Some examples:

Very experienced safety conscious (he was the OH&S rep') who always wore his seatbelt (statement of all his workmates) was driving with the forks down in an arc which inadvertently meant a brightly painted 140 mm wide building column was hidden by the mast upright (the mast was of the modern open type with no centre lift cylinder) - he would have seen it in the last 1.6 metres but could not stop. On this trip he was not wearing his seatbelt. He was thrown into the controls - so pushed back strongly as the drive wheel drove up the column and rolled the unit over - and he died with his head between the floor and frame.

A forklift driver with 31 years experience operating a very high lift paper roll grab forklift had had a dispute with his supervisor and was angry. Placed a paper role at 6 metres and in his anger reversed back quickly as he turned the steering. Actual forklift speed would have been low. Forklift went over and he died trying to jump clear.

A very cautious forklift driver was moving a slung heavy electric motor - unusually it was known that you have to reduce ratings by 20% with a slung load and the forklift had the capacity to safety move the load at that reduced rating. Was moving forward slowly when he tried to negotiate a slope of 100 mm rise over about 2 metres (pavement had beed sloped up to allow traffic over rail lines), a 5% slope. Because of the slope the motor swung to the left and the right hand drive wheel lost traction. He let it roll back and then tried again. Estimated speed was 1-2 km/h. Unfortunately as the motor already had a swing, it swung even further and pulled the forklift over. He died trying to jump clear and the workmate working with him was hit by the mast and suffered serious injury to one leg.

Experienced forklift driver was travelling quietly at around 6-8 km/h empty in a straight line down a warehouse with the forks down (the mast was of the modern open type with no centre lift cylinder). A pedestrian walked from his left in an arc that ended up in line with the left hand fork. The pedestrain's path meant they were hidden in the mast blind spot until they were about 1.5 metres away. Pedestrian had his leg degloved by the drive wheel.

In all these cases you could put up an argument that the deaths or injuries resulted from people mistakes or errors of judgement (instinctively trying to jump clear). But there is no way you could suggest that they were such serious errors that the end results should have been as described.

All of us need to work towards making forklift systems of work inherently safe