Posted By lewes Once a driver has been trained for the safe operation of fork lift training. Is it a legal requirement for refresher training or just a recommendation ?? Thanks for any input

Posted By Glyn Atkinson Good answer from Debbie - we retrain on a refresher basis every three years. Here's a practical reason to refresher train drivers - try explaining the lack of refresher training to the calling HSE inspector after any type of accident or serious injury involving your staff and fork lift trucks - I can see the improvement notice or prohibition notice being written on the spot, depending on severity. You need to be able to constantly prove your drivers' current capabilities - there could be a medical reason that may stop a person from continuing to drive, or a behavioural mannerism that has developed since first being trained that supervision or managers don't see on a day to day basis. The independent assessment / refresher will look for bad habits or alterations in spacial awareness under controlled conditions that are the same for any candidate.

Posted By garyh In my experience you retrain every 3 years; if you don't do this and it goes wrong, you would have to justify why you were not conforming to the "norm". Many FLT training compenies put a 3 year expiry on their training certificates and ID cards.

Posted By Jason911 A Fork lift license is similar to a driving license and technically only has to be passed once. However the earlier point about the HSE and an accident is spot on. We hold monthly FLT meetings to discuss issues and each driver must have an assessment every 12 months and receive an authority to drive signed by the manager at their location.

Posted By Merv Newman We had an annual "evaluation" of truckies. Supervisor took time to think about each truckie and decide if they needed re-training. Whatever the supervisor evaluation, truckies had refresher training every three years. I got my permit in 1982. Only occasionally drove a truck so got out of practice. Permit was revoked in 1986 for lack of spatial awareness. Retrained and passed in 2002. But what consultant actually needs a FLT permit ? The files ain't that heavy. Merv Question : when just driving along, at what height should the most forward point of the load, or the forks, be ? And why ?

Posted By Linda Crossland-Clarke Merv As near to heels and as low as poss. x Linda

Posted By Davelfc There are many providers NOPRS, RITTB, CITB My firms & previous firms chosen route was CITB/CPCS Trained Operatives, who start on a red card after normally a five day training course though can be assessed if an experienced worker, Once they have passed their training are awarded the City n Guilds certificate, and a log book, once they have conducted their touch screen test recieve the red trained worker card. they then have 300 hours logged in to their book which must be completed in a 2 year period but a minimum of 6 months to gain experience. filled in by an enabler, and checked by a registered validator (manager), who authentiucates the hours completed in specific machine The operator then upgrades to the blue card incidently the experienced worker gets a green card. Both are Competency cards. The idea with this is that if they are operatingover 300 hours annually and conducting they their touch screen test they are operating a machine enough not to suffer skill fade on that particular machine and so long as they are passing their test then should not need re-assessing. If you have an operator that is operating eractically or having incidents then assessment is appropriate, but an experienced operator who regularly operates the machine and is safe, there is no requirement under this scheme to re-assess as he already has proven competence Dave they the