Hi All,

I am having a real problem attempting to write a procedure for what action to take against forklift drivers when they have an accident i.e when to give a verbal warning, when to give a wriiten warning, when to suspend from drive the truck on either a temp or permanent basis, when to re-train, when to re-test and when and if to substance test. There are just so many variables and I just need a simple procedure for our location managers to follow. I have been at it all weekend and this is my last hope. Does anyone have a simple investigation and outcome procedure that I could use as a starting point?

All help and advice, much appreciated.

Kind regards

Paul

Instead of focusing on what action to take against forklift drivers "when they have an accident", I suggest a focus on what unsafe behaviours there are among forklift drivers in general (either routine bad practices or bad practices from time to time), and identifying why they are happening and how they can be prevented.

If they never sound the horn, for example, there is no point in taking action against those that have an accident when not sounding the horn.  Instead you need to get them all to sound the horn.

I hope I am misunderstanding this because I find the the idea of an investigation procedure that defines levels of pubishment of people involved in an accident highly problematic. The role of investigation is to collect evidence to explain what happened. This is analysed to identify why, focussed on root causes. Only people who are reckless or had malicious intent should be subject to discipline; and that is very rare.

If you are punishing a driver for having an accident you need to also consider punishing their supervisor, trainer, the people who laid out the workplace, the site manager who oversaw all of these arrangements, the safety advisor etc. etc.

But hopefully I have misunderstood.

Thanks all, but I am not talking about our safety culture overall. I am simple looking for a straightforward approach for our location managers to follow after and accident has occurred and if the forklift driver was found to be at fault, then the action that they should take on a sliding scale. I could not agree more with all of the vauled feedback received and it is appreacited, but the difficulty that I am having is the correct course of action that managers should follow when things do go wrong as a result of the driver's error i.e verbal or written warning, re-training, re-testing or suspension from driving duties and making sure that they are appropiate to the situation. 

Kind regards, Paul

So speaking hypothetically a driver has an accident - the ideal solution is to suspend them from driving until an investigation and/or corrective actions e.g. re-training have taken place.

It transpires they are the only driver currently available for the site meaning the business stops until alternative arrangements can be made e.g. transferring a driver from another site or hiring a temporary driver.

We know safety comes first but against commercial reality you will end up with a split between the idealised documented activity and reality.

Your company made them location manager - they have sight of the daily variables your proposed document would not. I have seen documents similar to what you are seeking the trouble is as a remote hands off they set blanket rules which may not suit the nuiances of different locations e.g. not wearing a seat belt mandated as a written warning (if the site is flat as a pancake, vehicles are not travelling at speed in a controlled segregated area what purpose does the belt serve?).

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