Life & Safety with Jimmy Rios
Welcome to Life & Safety with Jimmy Rios! Get ready to dive into a world where safety meets storytelling! Drawing from his rich background as a former firefighter, EMT and safety expert, Jimmy brings you straight into the heart of safety and emergency preparedness. Episodes feature easy-to-understand tips, real-life stories, and interviews with experts, all designed to help you protect yourself, your business, and those you care about.
Whether it's advice on navigating everyday safety challenges or insights into the latest in health and safety trends, let this podcast educate and entertain you. Join Jimmy and level-up your safety knowledge with engaging discussions that could one day save a life.
Life & Safety with Jimmy Rios
Forklift Safety Gaps: Why Training Matters More Than You Think
Think driving a forklift is just like driving a car? Not even close. Forklifts are a leading cause of workplace injuries, and many companies don’t even realize they may be out of compliance with OSHA regulations... until an accident happens and they're in trouble. In this episode you’ll learn why proper forklift training isn’t just a formality, but a critical safety measure that protects your workers, reduces liability, and keeps your operation running smoothly.
We break down why certification is required for every model of industrial lift your business uses, the most common mistakes companies make, and the small but serious OSHA violations that can lead to major problems. You’ll also hear real examples of forklift accidents and simple ways to prevent them.
We've even got a story for you about training our very own Life Safety team on how to drive our forklift (spoiler: the ladies took the wheel on this one!).
So whether forklifts are part of your daily routine, or just an obstacle you dodge in a warehouse aisle, this episode is packed with safety tips you won’t want to miss.
Life Safety Associates specializes in emergency response training for corporate ERT Teams. We help businesses create competent and confident first responders who are ready to handle unexpected emergencies. For more information you find us @lifesafetyassoc or email@lifesafety.com.
What's happening? It's your boy, jimmy, with another life and safety podcast. Today we got Queen Bee Jenny hanging out with us. Today, the boss lady, aka the off-duty coordinator, aka mom.
Jenny:We're all pretty badass here.
Jimmy:Yeah, all the life safety.
Jenny:Ladies, we got to keep up with you guys.
Jimmy:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Something like that, something like that, all right team. So today we're going to talk about something that not a lot of people know that we do here at Life Safety, and that's forklift training. Yep, forklift training and it kind of came to fruition years ago with the original owners that there was a need for people to need forklift training, and since life safety was already in their system, it just made sense for us to start doing it. So, with that being said, why do we need to have forklift training, right? Well, forklift hurt more people than most accidents in the workplace. It's one of the most common things, it's always in the top 10 OSHA violations and it's very costly. Not only is it it money costly, but it's time person costly. If somebody gets hurt, they're going to be out for a while and the crazy thing is, when people get hurt on forklifts, it's usually because they've got they're on a ladder and they get hit. Some people running people with ladders.
Jenny:That sounds so sketchy.
Jimmy:Isn't that wild, yeah yeah. And another old school one. It doesn't happen much anymore, but this comes up in our class quite a bit because we go over the posted rules and there's X amount of rules that you have to kind of go over and understand before you can drive a forklift, amount of rules that you have to kind of go over and understand before you can drive a forklift, and it's basically the safety rules poster that everybody's supposed to have posted with their forklift. And just FYI, that's one of the most common violations. When OSHA walks through They'll say something like hey, jenny, I see you on this forklift, where's your forklift rules and things posted at. And Jenny's supposed to know.
Jenny:So people don't have literally the poster posted yeah. That's like the easiest thing to do, right, yeah.
Jimmy:And so we actually kind of go over that and we actually give them the paper copy of the rules so they can then put them on the forklift. At least they're not posted, but at least they're there, they're accessible. And then you know hopefully that's a memory jogger to do those things right later, not to catch somebody or to in between the forks, or to back up and pinch somebody or try to impede their walk with a forklift, because you'll squish them Right. These things weigh lots and they're huge. They weigh lots and lots of weight.
Jenny:Don't try and like cut in front of somebody. Exactly or like sneak in front of them them so they can't walk down the aisle exactly I feel like that's the same as like with a car.
Jimmy:That's not very safe right, or imagine me trying to walk up and like catch you in between the four o'clock so I can talk to you yeah, I think I'd be a little scared right. Well, that's actually where the rule comes from. The rule actually came from when women enter the workforce and, for whatever reason, they're in the workforce. The guys in the warehouses and stuff like that were trying to talk to them and they would try to pull up to them and be like, hey, girl what's up?
Jenny:What's up? So you're harassing me and you're trapping me between forklifts.
Jimmy:Yes, no.
Jenny:That's wild, Wild, old school outdated thing right.
Jimmy:So we actually have a forklift training VHS tape that's a gazillion years old and it actually has a segment in there and it's like jane's husband died in vietnam. She needed to start working. Joe likes jane and he's gonna ask her out to dinner and pulls up to her in the forklift with the forks up and actually like hits her in the face and it's like doesn't look like joe's gonna get his date tonight, kind of a thing that's horrible, like you're pulling out, like the big giant tv with bunny ears on the rolling platform yes
Jimmy:in elementary school old school to show that yeah yeah, with the v, with the VHS tape.
Jimmy:Times have changed, thank goodness. Right, so super random. So that's one of those weird rules that we have to go over and we just talk about and I always tell people those rules are written in blood because somebody's been hurt or somebody's done something to initiate that rule Right. That rule right. One of the rules on there is you can't drive and, while you're in motion, stick your hands outside of the running lines, so you can't stick your hands outside of the forklift.
Jenny:so it's like sticking your hands outside the uh, the roller coaster yeah, exactly your manos de los pies yes.
Jimmy:So what happens? If you stick your hands outside the the forklift and you're driving next to a big rack of pallets and stuff on it? You get your arm stuck. So that's a big one. That's another violation. Actually, people hit racks and stuff like that and there's videos all over youtube if you want to see those kind of things.
Jimmy:Now, another fun rule that I always like talking about is when people lift their legs things and they put them on shelving and then I actually call it. I probably couldn't, shouldn't, call it to say this name of the store I always reference probably not no, but it's a big construction box store enter either one of them and every time I'm in there there's always somebody like you know, have something up on the thing and they're telling the other co-worker just grab that right there. And they stick their hand underneath the forks or next to the chain, the mast of it lifting and moving and that kind of stuff. It's just super sketch, so don't do that. Now, another big violation is the pre-flight inspection. Is the pre-flight inspection? So OSHA states that you have to do an inspection every eight hours. Okay, and if anything's wrong with it safety-wise, you have to take it out of commission. So that's always a contentious point when I go to new clients, especially because that's one of the things that in the poster the two easiest things nobody ever does.
Jenny:How do you track that? Are you? Is there like a list? Is it a checklist? Is it changing shifts? How do you track?
Jimmy:how many hours is it? A lot of people do it differently. The most common is there's a book on the forklift with a checklist in it and it just has the date and the time it was done. And that's cool, as long as everybody looks at it and makes sure it was done, all good. Highly recommend you look at it and make sure it was done, all good. Highly recommend you look at it and you do it mentally. Or, if you want to do your walk around portion of it, check it, make sure like there's no paint, scratch or dents, anything like that, because if there is somebody hit something right and if you're the last one on it, you're going to get blamed for it, so always c with that.
Jimmy:A lot of clients are going to QR codes, so they're making stickers and they're putting them on there and they're going to a sheet that you can fill out. That's cool yeah, it's really cool and obviously reduces paper things like that. But what it really does is it makes the person that's on it have to do the checklist yes, because you can't see the history exactly right.
Jimmy:So it works really good. It works really good, so I really like that. Um the some of the employees takes a little hard to get used to, right, like with any kind of change. It's hard but it's a good thing. Um now kind of a story I give when people are tilting and loading forklifts the pallets on the lifts is my son and I two different times we actually went to one of those big construction um still box stores and we saw twice a pallet of toilets get knocked off the back. Do you remember us coming home and telling you this?
Jenny:I don't. I feel like I should, but I don't that's all good to remember, but you know that sounds like it would be interesting to see it was very interesting.
Jimmy:But team to be fair, I tell jenny lots of stories and I and I talk too much at home sometimes. So Jenny, really—.
Jenny:There are so many stories I cannot remember them all. But on the bright side, sometimes they feel new again.
Jimmy:Thank you for bailing me out. I would say so. Sometimes. She just shuts me out and that's all good, I get it.
Jenny:I mean, it depends on the day and my story and tolerance. Fair enough.
Jimmy:Fair enough. Fair enough. Yeah, this podcast was your idea. No, I'm teasing, it was Thanks for playing along.
Jenny:Oh good, so the toilets.
Jimmy:Yeah, so persons, I was going to get there. I like to weave my stories Telling my business woman. So we're there and I think our son, jamison, was 12 or 13. So this was some time ago. I was watching the forklift guy because he looked very unsteady and the way he was moving the mast the mast is the part that tilts the forks up back and forth and makes it go up and down, so a big deal. And I was watching him and I was like that doesn't look right. This will be interesting.
Jimmy:And he loads it, gets the pallet to the very highest rack and starts driving in and I go well, okay, I see what you're doing there. Good, so far, so good. And he takes the pallet and he starts pushing the back pallet away from him. So there's two racks, there's a pallet on the other side, a pallet in the middle and the pallet he's putting on and he's making room by pushing the pallet that's in the middle towards the other side of the aisle. And I said that's gonna fall off and, jameson's, what are you talking about? I said, watch, let's back up a little bit, because that's gonna be a lot of stuff lying. And he's like what do you mean? I said look at that top box up there. It's all those toilets they're gonna fall off the top and 30 seconds later toilet avalanche and a pallet of toilets and porcelain.
Jimmy:It just goes flying everywhere that's dangerous right especially in a store like that, with people everywhere.
Jimmy:Like that can't be good no, and they didn't have the other aisle blocked off so there potentially could have been people there. We're only maybe 30 feet away, so we definitely had some porcelain shrapnel come and hit us and you know, my son being our son goes. That was awesome and I was like it was kind of awesome and I was like hold on, son, and I actually walked over and I put my business card, life safety card on the seat so they never call. And every time I'm in one of those stores not every time for a long time there I actually used to put my card on their seats, but I don't do that anymore. But I've actually seen that happen twice in the same store. They didn't on their seats, but I don't do that anymore, but I've actually seen that happen twice in the same store. They didn't learn their lesson Different drivers. So those are just some of those things like the rules we go over in class.
Jimmy:Another thing we like to do in class is talk about what the do's and don'ts. Some of the big do's and don'ts is driving in dark areas without your headlights on. Most new forklifts have low-res lights or low-visibility lights the big, bright blue lights or their side view lights that are bright and red and they really help, but still turn your headlights on. It's really amazing how people don't use their headlights on their forklifts. So those are some of those things. So let's talk about why we need to get trained and who gets trained. Mostly the why we should get trained. So when we say that I want to bring up a story, I'm going to put Jenny on the spot here and bring up our in-house forklift training day.
Jenny:Oh, my gosh, that was so much fun.
Jimmy:I need to go find some of those videos so that I can share them with everybody on our socials because we had so much fun yeah, so tell everybody, why we did a in-house Female-only forklift training day.
Jenny:I think we were just all interested and we wanted to learn how, and we just, you know, thought that it would be good to learn and good to know. But I don't think I've ever driven the forklift. I haven't needed to since then and I don't. I wouldn't feel comfortable doing it now because I wouldn't know what to check or look at or anything. So and it was so long ago, I'm no longer certified yeah, doing it now because I wouldn't know what to check or look at or anything, and it was so long ago I'm no longer certified.
Jenny:Yeah, so just so everybody knows, your certification lasts for three years and it's definitely been longer than three years for Jenny, oh yeah definitely, but we need to do another one because we have some other folks here that would be good to get trained now. Yes, Just for the experience of training and driving.
Jimmy:Yeah, so at Life Safety we obviously do some disaster stuff and we had pellets of water showing up and some other pellets of disaster supplies that needed to be unloaded from a truck and the truck driver got super angry. Do you remember this? That one driver who wouldn't use his lift gate?
Jenny:Yes, yes, that's right, I did. I forgot about that.
Jimmy:Yeah, that's kind of how it started.
Jenny:Huh, yeah, we needed to be able to know how to do it, just in case.
Jimmy:Yeah, and the guy would throw a fit and then try to charge us for using his lift gate and all these things. It was a hassle and every time you showed up it was jenny or some of our other office staff that just at the time happened to be females and it wasn't a big deal it's not a thing, but it was like it just happened to be that way, because all the instructors and everybody knew how to drive the forklift were never here well then we made it think because we were like, yeah, we're gonna be girls driving forklifts, we're badass, let's do this right got everyone to do it, even if they didn't need to know yeah.
Jimmy:So they scheduled me a forklift class that day. So I actually had to come back and teach everybody how to try forklifts and it was really fun it was. It was not a bad thing, it was a lot of fun. But you know, it's just one of those things that, like, who gets trained right? So in your offices and your workplaces of work, anybody that drives a forklift on your property has to be trained by you. So if you're at life safety, if we had a truck driver show up and was like, oh, I can drive a stand-up forklift, I've been doing it for 20 years, cool, you're not allowed to drive ours, you have to go through our training. So you out there as an EHS professional, somebody that just works around a warehouse, something like that, your company has to come up with a way for you to be trained so you can drive that forklift. Okay, you can't just let anybody off the street, so to speak, can drive that forklift. Okay, you can't just let anybody off the street, so to speak, drive your forklift.
Jenny:What if we have more than one type of forklift or a pallet jack or scissor lift and stuff like that? Is it still just the one training?
Jimmy:If it's scheduled that way, we can make that happen. But it has to be an electric pallet jack. You don't have to be trained on a regular pallet jack. Electric pallet jack and all the different types of lifts you have to be trained on too. So the walk behind pallet jack or the electric walk behind or the ride on pallet jack or the walk behind forklift, anything like that you have to be trained on anything that's considered a forklift or a powered industrial truck. You have to be trained on anything that's considered a forklift or a powered industrial truck. You have to be trained on it.
Jenny:And again, that certification is for three years and what if I change jobs and they have the same forklifts and the same equipment for the most?
Jimmy:part same job or same?
Jenny:different companies different companies.
Jimmy:Gotta go through their training even I didn't know that gotta be certified on their stuff, even if it's apples to apples comparison. And what I mean by apples to apples comparison is you have to have the same make and model but it still doesn't matter if it is the same make and model at a different business nope ocean very clearly states that you have to provide training for your forklifts.
Jenny:So it's a business owner's thing right as small business owners ourselves. It's a business owner thing, not necessarily the employee thing. The business is the one who has to make sure that their drivers are trained.
Jimmy:Yep, yeah. How do we know that that person didn't fake? You know, buy that thing off of eBay or something like that or, you know, print it out Makes sense. Yeah, you got it. Cya, folks, cya, especially with a thing that not only can hurt you but damage property and life, all kinds of things. It's super important. So if you have any forklift training needs and you know you didn't know us, that's all good. Now you know that life safety does that. Uh, so reach out email at lifesafetycom and tell me.
Jenny:Tell me, jimmy sent you because he won't be answering the phones, definitely not definitely not.
Jimmy:Thanks a lot, folks. Um, we'll catch you next time. Peace.
