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QUESTION:We have a "better than average" forklift safety program. Still, we continue
to
see f/l related incidents. Does anyone have any thoughts on why f/l related
safety seems so difficult.
Forklifts have accounted for 40+ percent of the incidents we investigated in
1997; 1998 has been about the same.
Personal thoughts are: do we expect too much? are f/l related incidents
inevitable?, is it in some way related to our view of driving an
automobile?,
do we need to "screen" drivers with some sort of a psych profile before
training to ensure they can take the responsibility seriously ?
Any thoughts or suggestions greatly appreciated.
ANSWER: What kind of industry are you in, and what percentage of the total work
is done by means of forklifts? If that is where most of your workers
are, it would make sense. Also, 40% of what? What is your definition of
incident and how big is your facility? 40% percent of all incidents,
including near misses and unsafe acts reported, in a 1000-person plant
is going to be different from 40% of lost time injuries in a shop of
ten.
More questions: is there a common thread running through the incidents
in terms of causation? If not, your forklift incidents may be nothing
more than a statistical "blip".
For what it's worth, we haven't had a forklift incident of any kind for
several years, and I too am knocking on my desk as I type. Hard.
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