The Super Bowl was last February 2. National Forklift Safety Day was last June 10. Certainly, neither date is important now except for how they raised our awareness of the need for talent, discipline, and extra precautions in the regular season.
Of note, the professional training camps started in July, but the really savvy professionals actually started personal training months before. We all know why. Despite the allure of a Super Bowl ring, truly successful track records are not built on one game. Likewise, forklift safety is not a peak event at a rodeo, crowned by bragging rights, medals and awards.
Forklift safety is much more akin to the regular football season, and yes, even the Pre-Season. It’s about the day-to-day blocking and tackling. It’s about continual vigilance and discipline. And it’s much, much harder than winning the rodeo. The time to start building a winning game season started in May, and the time to start building a forklift safety record was at the beginning of your “Safety Year”, not two weeks before the rodeo.
Based on the stats, here are a few things to watch out for and what you can do about them.
1 – Stay in the cage. This means always use a seatbelt in case of a fall. It also means minimizing movement in and out of the forklift cage. One way to help with that was Bluff’s development of a dock board that could be safely placed, locked in and removed without leaving the cage. The Speedy Board comes in a wide range of sizes and capacities, and the efficiency savings – not to mention the cost reductions through safety – make this a great value.
2 – Maintain the forklift, but do it in a safe manner. Football teams check the goal posts for stability, and we’ve read the stories about what happens when the goal posts snap and fans sustain head injuries. Less written about, but no less devastating, is what happens when a mast collapses in the middle of forklift maintenance. Don’t let this happen to you. Bluff offers a reusable and handy Forklift Stabilization Kit that is more durable than wood. With it, both the wheels and the masts can be stabilized for safer maintenance. In football, trainers won’t allow unstabilized knee exercises, so don’t allow your masts and wheels to go unstabilized either.
3 – Prevent injuries when going up in the air. The NFL has rules about roughing the kicker when the kicker’s leg is up in the air and he is very vulnerable to injury. So too, OSHA has rules about going high up without protection. Bluff’s safety cage (or man basket) meets those rules, and protects workers from the many injuries that can occur when being lifted up for maintenance, picking and more.
Bottom line – winning the Super Bowl is not about a single game – it’s really about a whole season and staying injury free. So too with forklift safety – it’s not about a rodeo buckle or award, it’s about a whole season – productive and injury free. For more information from Bluff Manufacturing on how we can help you stay injury free and productive in your operation, call 1-800-433-2212, or visit our website at www.BluffManufacturing.com.
