A big step for lift-truck safety
By Ray Kulwiec -- Modern Materials Handling, 1/1/1999
It's finally happened. After years of discussion, red tape, and effort, we now have a tough federal standard for the operation of industrial trucks in the U.S. You can read senior editor Tom Feare's news story about it in this issue. He attended a signing ceremony in Washington last December at which the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) officially issued its standards regulating and defining the training of lift-truck operators.We would have liked to have seen it happen sooner. But certainly better late than never. It's a win-win situation for all concerned-employers, employees, and lift-truck suppliers. Tom's article spells out the statistics on fatalities and injuries involving industrial trucks. Hopefully those numbers will now go down-along with the numbers associated with the costs of these tragedies.
The initiative for this federal change came from members of the Industrial Truck Association (ITA), a trade group representing industrial truck manufacturers. After an initial petition back in March of 1988, ITA members met with OSHA officials in April 1989 to propose that the agency tighten up its rule, which for years merely stated that lift-truck operators should be "trained", without any further specifics. The ITA group also hoped to build support for its proposal among key members of the Bush administration and Congress. That's when we started writing about this subject, and have been ever since. It is very satisfying to finally see a closure.
The wheels of government may turn slowly, but now that we have a new law, we expect to see training activity accelerate rapidly. Although employers have the direct responsibility, they can use outside help. Most of it will probably come from lift-truck dealers.
Those companies who already have an operator training program with teeth in it will probably only have to do some fine tuning so that they are in compliance with the new ruling. Others will have to gear up quickly. The new regulations take effect March 1, 1999. The full text of the new standard is available from OSHA through its website at www.osha.gov.
There are no other articles related to this article.Talkback
Related Content
Related Content
Sponsored Links
View All Blogs
