🚜 Powered Industrial Trucks & Forklift Safety

Powered industrial trucks — forklifts, reach trucks, order pickers and pallet jacks — are involved in a large share of serious warehouse and industrial injuries every year, and tip-overs remain the single biggest killer. This free course teaches forklift and powered industrial truck safety end to end: the OSHA truck classes and how to read the data (capacity) plate, the physics of the stability triangle and why most forklift fatalities are overturns, the daily pre-use inspection, safe travelling and load handling on the level and on grades, the pedestrian and loading-dock hazards around trucks, and the OSHA operator training, evaluation and certification requirements. It is aligned with OSHA 29 CFR 1910.178 and the ANSI/ITSDF B56.1 consensus standard. The course is organized into 6 modules, ending with a final exam (pass mark 80%). It is free awareness-level training designed for anyone who needs a practical, working understanding of the topic.

What you'll learn

• Forklift types and the powered industrial truck — OSHA Classes I–VII and the data plate
• The stability triangle and tip-over physics
• Pre-operation inspection and controls
• Safe operating practices — travel, loads, grades and blind spots
• Pedestrian and workplace hazards
• Operator training, evaluation and certification

Learning objectives

• Identify the seven OSHA classes of powered industrial truck and read the data/capacity plate
• Explain the stability triangle and how load, height and tilt cause tip-overs
• Perform a daily pre-use inspection and remove a defective truck from service
• Apply safe travel and load-handling rules on the level, on grades and around blind spots
• Recognise pedestrian, dock-edge, trailer-creep and refuelling/battery-charging hazards
• Describe OSHA operator training, evaluation and the three-year re-evaluation requirement