Perhaps the main point is that the operator is deserving of greater respect than he or she typically receives.

FLTA chief Peter Harvey opened the Safety Conference by referring to the poor wages of many operators and wondered if it was surprising that we see so many accidents.

The good news is that while many forklift operators are under-valued, some companies are showing a fine example.

One of these is Babcock International, who presented at the FLTA Safety Conference, having won last year’s Safe Site Award at the FLTA Awards for Excellence.

A number of near accidents prompted Babcock to open discussions on safety practice and they gave operators a central role. 

Mark Jackson, logistics centre of excellence manager said: “We carried out seminars and the operators told us what was wrong. This was crucial. There was a lot of passion but we didn’t want shrinking violets, we wanted the guys banging the tables to get involved.”

Babcock created a number of safety standards that it implemented at its Devonport site and which it continues to review and refresh. Mark mentioned several of these in his presentation but one in particular stood out.

Mark explained: “We said the driver has the right to refuse to do any task if it is unsafe, but must report to a supervisor so a safe method can be agreed.”

The company summed up its approach as ‘home safe, every day’. If that was the prevailing attitude across UK industry how many more accidents could be eliminated?

The previous week I attended the Operator of the Year final at the RTITB’s headquarters in Telford. It was a fantastic showcase of the talent and dedication shown by forklift operators and was a rare opportunity for their role to be honoured and rewarded. The winner, Ryszard Janus, was presented with some impressive prizes, including a car, and was very emotional as he received the congratulations of a room full of his peers and forklift safety stakeholders.

The other key point I took away from the events is that is worth emphasising the grave consequences of forklift accidents. 

Lisa Ramos of Kirkby-in-Ashfield, who was run over by a forklift in 2006, losing a leg, spoke via video at the FLTA Safety Conference and urged companies to show real life accident footage during inductions. She complained these videos tended to be boring and that shock tactics would bring home the dangers of working with, and around, forklifts.

Briggs Equipment revealed the origins of its BE Safe campaign to promote safety among its engineers.

Operators director Gavin Wickham said: “We felt we had a strong safety culture among our engineers, but when Paul Fitzpatrick, an engineer with vast experience, lost the top half of several fingers on one hand, it jolted us into totally rethinking our approach to safety.”

The Health & Safety Executive’s Jane Willis summed up the day when she said: “We are acutely aware of the consequences when forklifts are not used correctly, real people lie behind the statistics.

“We want to drive cultural change through good leadership. We want leaders to be personally involved and not to accept bland assurances that everything will be alright. Competence is critical and we want to see people recognising the real risks, and taking action to manage them, whatever their role in the company.”