It's better for your body to push but easier to loose control and have an accident because it's harder to maintian a straight line. I would expect the individual (armed with this knowledge) to make a judgement call based on the distance to be covered.

I think the basic design is older than the appreciation of manual handling risks.

I worked with these for years and was always taught to push, less strain on back as you are not twisting to either see the truck or where you are going and you have greater control when pushing, also you don't run over yourself if you lose control.

Our warehouse people were told to push as first choice in their training, but they were also told to assess what they were doing & if pulling was the safest way then they could pull.
Sort of given the choice they pushed as a norm and we did not have any related health problems in the 4 years I was there.

I'm surprised at the comments re pushing the pump trucks. We train all our staff (in our warehouses and stores) to pull pump trucks. I agree that this is not 100% ideal for manual handling, however the alternative (pushing) leads to much greater risks, in our opinion.

We identified that pushing pump trucks:
- the operator could not maintain control of the pump truck i.e. the steering could not be modulated and the truck veered off course (I personally found it impossible to push a truck in a straight line!)
- With pallets up to 1.8m height the operator cannot see the direction in front if pushing
- There is a greater risk of collision with pedestrians, as the truck is at the front. With pulling, this risk is almost eliminated due to the operator travelling in front and if a hazard presents itself (i.e. a pedestrian steps in front of the operator) the truck can be immediately stopped, and even if it couldn't it would be the operator not the truck colliding with the pedestrian, resulting in a lower severity of injury.
- Manufacturers recommendations state to pull the truck
- Pump trucks can be stopped immediately by depressing the handle to lower the pallet to the floor, almost instantaneously and much better than letting the pump truck coast to a stop.

Some of the above could be controlled by having a second operator "spot" during the operation to identify and alert persons, however this was not possible in our situation.

We felt that the risks of pushing were greater than the risks of pulling, and we have a very low accident / injury rate in relation to pump truck use and have always trained operatives to pull.

I guess it depends on application though, as every company will be different!