Good morning, Currently reviewing and updating our Risk Assessments / Safe Systems of Work regarding the use of dock levellers. Formerly, we stipulated that approximately 50% of the lip should be in contact with the vehicle bed, but upon further investigation, this will not always be possible to achieve. The latest version of the FTA Loading Bay Guide (Version 2 dated May 2013) suggests that many companies paint a yellow square measuring 'around' 150mm at the front left and right edges of the dock leveller lip, to indicate minimum amount of lip on the vehicle which must be monitored by loading bay staff during the load / unload process. The problem that we have is that 150mm is not always achievable due to the variety in length of dock leveller lips, the variety in the type of vehicle and the depth of their rubber / polyurethane bumpers together with some variance across our sites with the actual dock bumper depth. In most cases, a minimum of 100mm is achievable, and we believe safe and we are considering setting this as the minimum and marking this on our dock leveller lips with a 100mm yellow square. Your thoughts and comments welcomed. Thank you. Mike

Thanks for your input Martin - I think this is now EN 1398 which I am trying to get a look at. Mike