Knock off the "deadman"

Remember the sad story I told you of that guy who was disabled after the lift truck he got off of pinned him against a wall? He said he didn’t understand why his lift truck didn’t have a “deadman switch” that would have powered-off the truck when he got out of the seat. Well, this guy’s lack of training was just one example of the poor treatment this guy got from his bum employer. We got some feedback from sources in the industrial truck industry who shed some light on this dark situation.

First, lift truck manufacturers design their products to comply with safety standards—in this case, ITSDF B56.1. That’s the safety standard for low lift and high lift trucks. A “For the User” section tells how to properly operate a lift truck. Section 5.2.11 of B56.1 would have been good for our friend to read. It tells what to do when leaving the operator position. First thing: apply the parking brake. Not doing that was our friend’s first mistake.

Now, about that “deadman” feature we talked about. The industry hates that terminology. They like “seat switch.” Anyway, B56.1 mandates that travel controls on IC sit-down riders be designed so that “movement of the truck shall be possible only if the operator is in the normal operating position,” and “powered travel movement shall not occur automatically when the operator returns to the normal operating position without additional operation(s).” That means stuff like resetting the directional control or reactivating the speed control.

Okay, so the seat switch detects when the operator is in the “normal operating position.” But guess what? This gadget wasn’t part of the B56.1 standard until five years ago. So our guy was probably on a truck a LOT older than that. Old trucks and no training spell trouble, with a capital T and that rhymes with P and that stands for pitiful.

Training is a MUST, according to OSHA 1910.178. Now I’ve been called certifiable by some people, but it was never meant as a compliment. But being a certified lift truck operator would be a good thing. Talk to your lift truck dealer about it. They’ll help.