Forklift truck safety procedure

If operated by those not fully trained in their safe use, forklift trucks can cause serious injuries or fatalities. For this reason, you should brief new staff on their safe use. Our procedure can help you do this.

Safe use of forklifts

If your business needs to justify the use of one or more forklift trucks, it’s important to ensure that you have safe systems of work in place for their use. One way of demonstrating this is to have a Forklift Truck Safety Procedure in place. It should be used to brief your operators once they have completed their formal training with an accredited training body.

Using the procedure

The procedure is split into two main sections, which contain a number of “dos and don’ts”. This is intended to help you reduce the likelihood of accidents occurring. For example, the bullet points listed under the “dos” reflect a variety of safe working practices, such as to avoid stopping the forklift suddenly and to always lower heavy loads slowly. The “don’ts” advise against bad behaviour, such as avoiding horseplay and not carrying passengers, through to instructing drivers not to carry out any repairs on the forklift. There’s room on the checklist for the employee’s signature to be obtained and a copy of this and the completed checklist should be kept on their personnel file as a record. Should there be an accident, this written record will help you demonstrate that you’ve taken all reasonable precautions.