Thanks, John.

Hi Dan

As you've already stated forklift training is the law in Australia. And you know I'm passionate about forklift safety, so I'll go further with my comments:

Does that mean companies who wish to employ people to drive forklifts ask for people to have licences. In my observation generally yes.

Does that mean companies strongly enforce with all their employees that to drive a forklift they need to have a licence. In my observation in many medium to large companies this is enforced strongly. But in less forklift safety aware companies I get the impression it is not unusual to find unlicenced people driving forklifts.

Does that mean companies train their licenced forklift drivers in the particular issues and risks associated with that business and work site and their forklifts. In my observation generally no even though most training is done on counterbnalance forklifts with capacities from 1500 kg - 2500 kg (3000 lb - 5000 lb).

Is the training effective at the basic levels? If you take the most basic requirement to know the weight of the load you about to lift and to know the capacity of your forklift, and to make sure the forklift can safely lift the load, then my answer is definitely NO! I've only come across a handful of forklift operators who know their forklifts capacity and the heaviest loads commonly lifted on site (and that's out of hundreds of operators). Along with this are the unreadable load plates (reasonably common), the missing load plates (rare), the load plates under clipboards or that have had stickers stuck to them (very common), the load plates that do not have ratings for for the attachments used with that forklift (common).

And then there's all the pallets that don't have a weight on them including inwards and outwards goods - and in process pallets rarely have weights.

In summary most drivers don't do these basic checks and often can't do them because they don't have the information.

And whenever I do refresher training I find that drivers have developed bad habits - the most common being raising the load during travel and just before turning to line up with racks - load typically will be at 1.5 - 2.0 metres by the time they are at 90 degrees to the rack.

You'll get the idea - basically while training is compulsory here it has a very limited impact on forklift safety

Well, Ed, we are not getting much of a response to our queries. I would have liked to maintain a database on our questions, but unfortunately, no one is responding. My initial question is sitting at the top of the site's cover page (thanks to the staff), and we shall await any further responses.

I would love to hear if there is any enforcement of this law in Mexico AND other countries. I think in the USA, there is a perception that one of the ways manufacturing is "cheaper" in other countries is the lack of environmental and employee safety rules and enforcement, and it will do a lot of good [international relation wise] to find that other countries also are as concerned for the safety of the working people.

Thank you, and keep it coming.

Danny

Here in Mexico It´s the law

agree with what?

Yup, I agree

I am sure that it is not the law in many African countries, some southeast Asia countries, certain central American and South American countries, and a few Middle Eastern countries I care not to mention. However, I am attempting to compile this list, and as you say, how are the laws enforced, or not.

So, if anybody is out there, please respond. It is much easier than seaching the net for this stuff.

a better question might be "where it is NOT the law" and also impressions of how well it is enforced.