Forklift accidents may not happen very often, but when it does, the consequences may be fatal. This is why there are a lot of precautions and daily inspections that should be done daily. These precautions are not to be taken lightly and employers should always try to enhance workplace safety for the sake of both the company and the workers.
It is crucial for employers to understand the safety precautions when working with forklifts to prevent forklift accidents from happening. If forklift safety precautions are neglected, fatal accidents may happen. In this article, we will be diving into the top 5 advice from professional consultants and prevent forklift accidents from happening in your warehouse or working site.
So without further ado here are the top 5 tips on how to prevent forklift accidents:
Table of Contents
1. Regular Training
As mentioned in our previous article on forklift certification and training, updating your worker’s knowledge helps to revise their knowledge. Having proper training and re-training will benefit everybody in the long run. It might be beneficial for you to have the workers that work near forklift areas join forklift safety training too. Forklift safety training would help to educate your workers about the safety precautions and rules that they should follow in order to prevent forklift accidents.
Some forklift accidents could be prevented by forklift training. Therefore, it is essential to ensure that your workers have the most updated knowledge on forklift training. Even if there aren’t any updates on forklift training, it would be good for forklift operators to attend regular training to remind them and refresh their knowledge on forklifts.
2. Clean and Safe Environment
Having a warehouse or worksite that is clean and neat would also help to improve the safety at your working site. To have a safer working environment, everything must be put in place. This includes used and unused items. If you are in a warehouse with boxes of materials, these boxes should have their designated place to put down.
There must not be any boxes that are put down at random on the ground, this could be a hazard for those operating forklifts. This would cause an injury for the forklift operator as well as damage to the boxes and possibly the materials. Forklift areas should also be well lit in order to ease visibility for the forklift operators. Dark and narrow isles would hinder the operators from seeing if there are any obstructions in the way.
3. Improve Safety Regulations
Having a neat warehouse and a well-informed forklift operator is not enough to prevent forklift accidents. To better prevent forklift accidents, the workers that are working around forklift operating areas should also be educated on the importance of workplace safety. In order to improve the safety regulations at your warehouse and construction sites, employers must implement strict rules on safety regulations.
Anyone who is on-site must always wear their safety equipment and comply with the rules of attire. Another way to improve your safety regulations on-site is to install lights that specially informs pedestrians that a forklift is on the move. These lights are called blue lights, it helps to prevent forklift accidents from happening.
4. Maintain Forklifts
Other than educating the people and providing a safe workplace, one must also ensure that your equipment is working well. This is why daily forklift inspections should never be neglected. Conducting your daily forklift inspections strictly would also help to maintain forklifts so that they can be used for a longer time. With good maintenance and daily inspections, your forklifts would least likely to break down during usage.
Daily forklift inspections would help forklift operators acknowledge if there are any loose parts or breakage that may cause the forklift to break down or accidents. Invest in good quality spare parts so that your forklifts would be able to last longer. To maintain your forklifts, it is also important to get your forklift for proper maintenance with a skilled forklift professional to fix any broken parts or check the engines.
5. Loading and Unloading Procedures
Having a regulation in place during loading and unloading helps to prevent materials from tipping over when carried by the forklifts. If boxes of materials are stacked haphazardly, it would most likely tip over when the forklift is on the go, it might cause an accident and injury to the forklift operator and maybe even pedestrians.
Have a loading and unloading procedure put in place. Let the operators and workers know that the boxes need to be put properly and limit the forklift speed on-site. When loading materials onto the forklift, ensure that the weight is distributed equally on the forks. Otherwise, it might cause the forklift to be unbalanced when operated.
If you are in a rut and are looking for more tips from skillful forklift consultants or is simply looking to invest in high-quality forklifts look for Forklift4s and book your free on-site consultation with us!