New figures have revealed that the road transport industry has the UK's worst fork lift truck safety record.

Figures, published by the Fork Lift Truck Association (FLTA) in time for National Fork Lift Safety Week, show that there has been a massive 237% increase in lift truck-related injuries to road transport employees since 2001/02 and that injuries in this sector now account for approximately a quarter of the total UK injury toll. The road industry in 2004 had the UK's fifth worst figure, but now the industry sees more fork lift truck accidents than the next four industries combined.

The problems for the road transport industry are made even clearer by the fact that in the same timescale, between 2001/02 and 2009/10, the storage and warehousing industry, which had previously been the worst sector for safety, had seen a 77% improvement in the number of injuries. 

The figures, which had originated from the Reporting of Injuries, Disease and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 1995 (RIDDOR), have on record those injuries which cause workers to have three days off work or more and also records hospitalisations and fatalities. Though the road transport industry's figures were poor, overall there was an improvement of almost a third in the safety record since 2001 with one industry, textile, reporting no incidents at all in 2009/10.

David Ellison, chief executive of the FLTA, said of the figures, that there were some industries which had yet to fully understand the safety message and which were therefore putting their workers at unnecessary risk. He said that managers at firms throughout the country had a legal and moral duty to see that safe working systems, proper equipment and suitable training were in place.

http://www.workplacelaw.net/news/display/id/36011