From broken necks to head trauma, falling off a flatbed truck is almost guaranteed to cause serious injuries – if not death. Unfortunately, most companies fail to provide effective flatbed safety strategies and fall protection equipment until they’ve had a fatal fall on their own site or at a similar facility.
From broken necks to head trauma, falling off a flatbed truck is almost guaranteed to cause serious injuries – if not death. Unfortunately, most companies fail to provide effective flatbed safety strategies and fall protection equipment until they’ve had a fatal fall on their own site or at a similar facility.
Here are three factors that increase the risk of these falls:
- Slippery Or Unstable Surfaces
In the absence of safer alternatives, employees often walk on top of a flatbed truck in order to secure cargo. This practice entails a significant risk that they could trip or slip on wet or uneven surfaces. In fact, tarping a flatbed load is one of the most dangerous activities a driver faces on the job. Walking all over a load while simultaneously trying to position a heavy, cumbersome tarp risks a debilitating fall.
- Irregular Load Shapes
Flatbeds are frequently used to transport loads that wouldn’t fit in a van, or that must be loaded from the side or the top by crane. These loads are often irregular in shape, such as machinery, piles of wood or long pieces of steel, increasing the danger of climbing on a loaded flatbed trailer.
Employees may lose their footing while trying to step around the cargo and other obstacles. When an irregular load is covered with a tarp, it’s impossible for a worker to tell where there might be a gap or where the load might shift when stepped on.
- Limited Workspace
Flatbed trailers may be parked next to each other with only three feet between them. This limited workspace makes it difficult for employees to maneuver when securing or tarping flatbed loads, increasing the risk of falls and other injuries.
Flatbed trucks present serious safety challenges, and the resulting falls lead to downtime, hospital bills and lawsuits. Understanding these three factors is an important first step in protecting your employees and reducing business risk.
If your work site or facility uses flatbed trucks, a well-designed fall protection solution could help your drivers feel much safer on the job, while also saving your company time and money. Since every work site has different safety hazards, it’s essential to conduct a thorough analysis of your current flatbed fall protection measures and work directly with a vendor to determine the best applications and solutions.
Need to boost production efficiency while maintaining workplace safety? Click below to download this industry guide from Carbis Solutions to discover the secrets to a safer – and more efficient – work site.
