The Importance of Forklift Safety

In light of the fast-paced growth within the Middle East's logistics industry, it is perhaps understandable why the seemingly basic issue of forklift safety is often swept underneath the company carpet. Unlike the West, which has a history of workers unions, scores of employee litigation for health and safety breaches and a culture of investing in workers, the Middle East is somewhat lagging behind when it comes to ensuring the safe use of the forklift truck in everyday working environments.

Statistics from the UK report 5247 workplace transport-related injuries in 2004/05, including 68 fatalities. Of these, 24% referred to forklift use. Perhaps unsurprisingly, similar statistics are not readily available for related accidents in the Middle East. Yet if these figures reflect the UK's record for forklift related accidents, despite of its strong existing government regulation and heavy penalties for negligent employers, one can only speculate that the Middle East's record could potentially be cause for concern.

Governments in the more industrially advanced regions, such as Dubai, stipulate operators should have a forklift driving licence. However, Danie van Wyk, senior health and safety instructor at the Gulf Technical and Safety Training Centre (GTSC), maintains that the lack of enforcement and follow-up often results in untrained workers operating machinery without the necessary skills or safety training.

Located in Abu Dhabi, GTSC provides one or two day theoretical and practical training on safe forklift use. However, as van Wyk points out, for many companies, attendance on the course is just a means to an end - to get the certification needed to satisfy their client's paperwork, rather than ensure operators are suitably equipped to operate the machinery. "You have companies who need a number of forklift operators for a particular project. The workers they send for training may have never driven a forklift before, and yet companies expect us to teach the person how to drive and operate the vehicle safely in two days," he says.

Van Wyk worries that forklift safety training in the region can be rendered pointless without the necessary national standards or assessment to ensure that safety measures are adhered to post training. Although he argues that the initiative to change this must come from government regulation, the actual delivery of forklift safety in the workplace can only be achieved by the companies using the equipment themselves.

"Whereas the government could be very strict in terms of legislation on what you do in a public place, what companies do in their private warehouses is less easy to regulate," emphasises VC Vinod, general manager at Yale. "So the onus for monitoring safety has to be passed onto the companies."

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As a provider of forklift trucks, Yale recognises the importance of informing companies about using their equipment safely. "As an international company and as a responsible company, we stress to our customers that this is a very dangerous piece of machine, especially as it is operated in a very constrained environment," he explains.

There are various reasons why forklift accidents occur - with operator error being the top of the list. "In a constrained environment, the operator error is often based on a misjudgement of speed, braking, and of load. Although this could also occur if a worker is trained, an operator with inadequate instruction is more likely to lose control of the vehicle," says Vinod.

Saravana Kumar, senior sales engineer at Al Shirawi, the sole distributor of the STILL forklift truck in Dubai and the Northern Emirates, agrees that operator error is a major cause of forklift accidents. "The STILL machines come with the option of changing speeds, with five different drive programmes to be applied in different circumstances. So for example, if the operator is required to travel a long distance along a horizontal floor, than he can go with the maximum speed. But if he is in a very congested area, he is advised to go with the slow speed so that he doesn't hit other moving machines or persons," says Kumar.

To help prevent forklift misuse from occurring, Al Shirawi Enterprises sends a technician alongside the machine to provide cost-free training to instruct the customer how to operate the machine safely.

Despite their best efforts, the ongoing problem in the region is, however, that neither the manufacturer nor the supplier of the forklift has any control over whether the worker who ends up using the machine has been trained or not. This is further compounded by the lack of knowledge and commitment to safety standards demonstrated on a management level by many companies.

For example, Vinod suggests that whilst the use of non-authorised operators in some countries is unheard of, it is much more common practice in the Middle East to use casual workers where needed to operate forklifts. As many companies in the Middle East are reluctant to invest money in the training of such short-term workers, the number of untrained forklift operators remains unchecked, and companies unaccountable. "So what happens is that if a worker ends up maiming himself or someone else here, you end up just giving him some money and putting him on a plane," he reveals.