Forklift Accident Prevention How a Forklift Safety System Could Have Changed an Incident
14 News in Georgia updated a report that first aired in March 2025. The report detailed a forklift accident that killed the CEO of the company. According to reports, the CEO was on a construction site with others when he decided to take a call and walked across the street. The CEO was not wearing the stated safety colors and gear, which resulted in the forklift operator hitting the CEO and killing him on site. OSHA fined the company $10,000 for his death. To add to the tragedy, two years prior to the building of the EV plant, there was another death, this time a construction worker. In total, OSHA had opened 15 investigations.
Could a forklift safety system save a life? Probably. This tragic event highlights the growing need for forklift accident prevention on construction and industrial sites.
How Could a Forklift Safety System Save a Life
To begin, not all forklift safety systems are alike. Some may be RFID based, some may have simple blinking lights, and only a few have more advanced technologies such as AI or artificial intelligence. If you are going to make the investment, AI is the most effective way to go for forklift accident prevention.
The S3 Pedestrian Detection System is constantly scanning every 60 ms searching for people and objects. The technology has over 10 years of experience and extensive learning in knowing the difference between the two. In the back of the telemetry dashboard, you get to set when you want the forklift safety system to warn the driver.
Let’s say, for instance, you are carrying a pipe. This pipe extends five feet from the forks in each direction. Next, when do you want the system to warn when people or objects come too close? Maybe 10 feet. Add the two together, and you have 15 feet on each side that needs to be protected. As soon as a person or an object crosses that 15-foot threshold, the forklift operator will be notified via audio and visual warning that a person or object is close. Now is the time for the forklift operator to take action, a critical moment in forklift accident prevention.
The screen on the forklift safety system will provide all of the information necessary. It will graphically show which direction and whether it is a person or an object. This is all of the critical information that the forklift operator needs to act.
If the forklifts at the site had a forklift safety system in place, the operator would have known the CEO was within the safety zone and could have taken action. But because it didn’t have one, the CEO of the company was lost.
Contact Us!
A forklift safety system does more than pedestrian and object detection. It can also support forklift accident prevention by ensuring OSHA compliance with digital checklists and forklift access control, to name a few. Contact us today to begin your safety journey to zero. Zero accidents means zero cost for damages and zero people getting hurt. You never knew that zero was the biggest number in safety. Learn how our forklift safety system can save a life for you.
Contact us today at sales@siera.ai or call us at (512) 817 0702.