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Pallet trucks and the law
Page 53
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The use of unpowered pallet trucks is covered by four main areas of leg Islation. They are: • Health & Safety At Work Act 1974; • Management of Health & Safety at Work Regulations 1992: • Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations (PUWER) 1998; II Lifting Operations and LiOing Equipment Regulations (LOLER) 1998 Failure to comply with the law can result in prosecution in a magistrate's court, with fines of up to £5,000 for each breach of the regulations, plus up to £20,000 for breach of the Health & Safety at Work Act. In a Crown Court offenders risk an unlimited fine.
Two of the key requirements of all these laws are for operators to be properly trained and for equipment to be regularly inspected.
Operator training is a relatively straightforward matter with unpowered pallet trucks as users do not require a fork-lift licence, as with many other lift truck types. However, despite the pallet truck's simplicity, employers are still obliged to provide appropriate training for operating the equipment.
Equipment inspection is a comparitively vaguer matter. PUWER and LOLER call for regular examinations by a "technically competent" person (but fail to define "technically competent") and also fail to provide any exact procedures for inspections.
To try and address this problem the Fork Lift Truck Association and British Industrial Truck Association jointly unveiled a new national ''Thorough Examination" scheme for safety examinations of fork-lift trucks earlier this year.
Developed with the assistance of the Health & Safety Executive and administered by a new joint venture called Consolidated Fork Truck Services, it defines how different lift trucks should be inspected and lays out minimum qualifications for those carrying out inspections and for inspection companies wishing to be accredited to the scheme.
Contact: Thorough Examination scheme see www.fork-truck.orguk or www.bita.org.uk/contentahorough_Examination.htm.