Can Forklift to Forklift Accidents be Reduced or Even Eliminated?

Being a participant in a forklift to forklift accident is dangerous, unsafe and destructive to the equipment, facility and the product(s). According to the NSC, there are over 7,290 forklift injuries each year, which includes forklift to forklift accidents. Is this one of those type of accidents that can be avoided? After all, how does a forklift not see another forklift in the same shared area?

What is a Forklift to Forklift Accident?

A forklift to forklift accident is when a single forklift has an low, medium or high impact with another forklift or lift truck. The impacts vary in strength or the G force experience. A single G force equals 22mph. So, if a G force is 3G’s, for instance, the impact occurs at 66mph. This can cause significant damage to the equipment as well as cause injury to the forklift drivers.

The Old Technology Way

It isn’t that anyone wants to get into a forklift to forklift accident. The drivers use whatever means they have to keep themselves safe. They rely on safety measures such as blue lights to keep pedestrians and equipment drivers aware of their presence. But it doesn’t always work. There are stop signs even painted on the floor to ensure caution is high traffic areas in order to avoid an accident. Is there anything out there to help keep a forklift to forklift accident from occurring?

The New Technology Way

There are newer or new technologies in the forklift safety system arena that can minimize forklift to forklift accidents. The technology that SIERA.AI recommends, is the AI machine learning based S3 Pedestrian Detection System (PDS). Why is this technology different than what’s out there today?

The new technology, S3 PDS, scans every 60ms searching for objects and pedestrians. Once it detects an object, it notifies the driver with audio and visual alerts with a picture of a box. The box signifies a piece of equipment, a box or customer product. If it is a pedestrian, it alerts the forklift driver with an audio alert and a visual alert with the symbol of a person. This type of technology is ‘proactive’ meaning, it’s searching out for the obstacle, which puts the forklift operator in the ‘driver’s seat’.

The Old Way of Inspecting a Forklift

We all know the old way (or maybe the current way for some) is paper. Grab that clipboard or booklet and start answering the same question, listed in the same order. Maintenance needs the forklift driver to take the forklift inspection seriously. But the truth is that not every forklift driver does. Not every driver includes the meter reading for the forklift. Let’s be honest, not every forklift driver is performing a proper inspection on the forklift truck 100% of the time. It’s only then that a maintenance manager may notice a problem with the forklift.

However, what the facility, fleet and/or maintenance manager must do is review the forklift sheets or booklet each week and try to figure out from paper if there’s a growing issue with the forklift. It’s not easy to figure out with paper-based forklift inspections. Yes, the information may be there, but how are you tracking? Are you making a spreadsheet? Creating PDFs of each forklift sheet? Or making special notes in the booklet? It does become a bit of an inconsistent mess.

Telemetry Dashboard

Again, we want proactive safety measures to guide the way. With a telemetry Dashboard by SIERA.AI, the manager can work together with the forklift driver to identify where improvements or changes can be made. Maybe the driver is aware of a dark area, or too tight of conditions for two pieces of equipment to work.

To identify if the driver is correct, the telemetry Dashboard will help you to know if there are any misses or low impacts that are occurring in the area. If so, change the configuration, and track the difference. The telemetry Dashboard helps you to be proactive in your safety strategy.

Summary

Forklift to forklift accidents occur often enough that it’s time to take control with a proactive forklift safety solution that can help decrease forklift accidents in the facility. Contact us today at sales@siera.ai to begin using your new S3 Pedestrian Detection System with a telemetry Dashboard.