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KNOW YOUR ENVIRONMENT: By addressing specific workplace conditions during training, companies can increase their warehouse safety record by as much as 70 percent.

KNOW YOUR MATERIALS: A company’s lift fork operators should be trained for the specific materials that they will be loading and unloading within the warehouse.

Lift truck safety training is a big issue and it should be: the monetary damages and loss of life that can result from accidents with lift trucks is staggering. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) released a report in June 2001 stating that forklifts strike people every day in the U.S., resulting in 100 deaths and over 20,000 injuries annually. The costs incurred due to forklift accidents are over $100 million a year.

There are dozens of companies out there that are solely dedicated to offering operator training or "train the trainer" type courses. In addition, most of the lift truck manufacturers offer training courses that are specifically focused on the types of trucks that they offer.

"Our safety training program is called 'Safety On The Move' and it's actually available to customers in two ways," says Mike Angelini, manager of field training services for The Raymond Corp., Greene, NY. "It's available as a class from a Raymond dealer or we have a package that the customer buys from the dealer. The program is a multi-media one, there are slides, videotape and text material."

Safety On The Move uses interactive discussions and demonstrations of safety principles, video-based examples and hands-on sessions. The training modules cover such topics as safety, the operator's daily checklist, travel procedures, safe load handling, ramps and loading docks, batteries and operating the truck itself.

Matt Hays, general manager at Hays' Food Systems, a wholesale food distributor in Warrenton, MI, took the Safety On The Move course at Raymond's headquarters and sings its praises. "It's a really good course and we've recently implemented it here. We have not had an accident in 14 or 15 months."