Lessons Learned from National Forklift Safety Day 2021
Today, Tuesday June 8th 2021, is National Forklift Safety Day in the USA per the Industrial Truck Association. The virtual event was full of insightful content and what struck us the most were some of the statistics below:
- There were 8,140 worker injuries or illnesses related to PITs in 2019. That's a 32.8% increase since 2011 and it's rising!
- 47.2% of forklift-related worker injuries and illnesses involved workers employed less than one year with their employer
- Hispanic or Latino workers accounted for 35 of the 79 forklift-related fatalities in 2019.
- The 1910.178 PIT OSHA Standard was the 7th most frequently cited standard in FY2020
Something we notice often is that some safety is visible, like PPE, or the wearing of glasses or a hard hat. However, you can't obviously see if a forklift is safe or if the operator is trained so does ‘out of sight out of mind’ apply? Perhaps it does considering it’s really a supervisor’s job to stay on top of forklift safety and making sure their people are trained and carrying out pre-shift inspections, but there are often busy and don't have time to go looking for it – despite the best intentions.
Taking all the above into account, and that the Forklift Truck is a potentially dangerous backbone of American industry, should every day be forklift safety day.... Or perhaps should every day be person safety day, rendering Forklift safety merely a byproduct?
Remember SG World USA and it's authorized distributors, help people take strides forward in solving the problems related to human behavior and Forklift Safety in a way that no one else can (due to patent protection). Why not start by reading what our customers think of our solutions here and check out our simple and effective forklift inspection solution here.
