Mobile Equipment Incidents

The Wilmington Assembly plant suffered a Lost Workday Case in December due to an incident involving a Flat Bed-Burden Carrier. In the last two months GMNA has had three serious incidents reported including a fatality, involving in-plant vehicles. In addition to the fatality at Arlington Assembly, the Pontiac Assembly plant also had a serious incident that resulted in the driver receiving more than 80 sutures. Both the fatality at Arlington and the Wilmington incident involve the vehicles striking a building column. In the Wilmington incident the driver was thrown from the vehicle. Many of you might ask “how does someone drive a piece of mobile equipment into a column? There can be a variety of reasons why this might happen:

• Distraction - Driving these vehicles is no different than driving your personal vehicle. All of us at one time or another have been distracted and suddenly realized we drifted out of our lane or had someone honk at us for our unintentional actions. Driving inside a plant, with aisles that can be narrow or having pedestrians moving through them can be even more of a challenge. Overcompensating when realizing we made a mistake can cause the vehicle to strike something or someone. You must stay focused, even anticipating someone unexpectedly stepping into our path. 

• Improper Passing - Driving around another vehicle under normal circumstances should be avoided unless asked to do so by the person(s) you are going around. Also, accelerating to move around should not be done, instead only move past by going slow enough that should you need to stop, you can.

• Conditions in the Area - Floor conditions may have contributed to the incident at Wilmington. Uneven floors, holes/depressions can cause the vehicle to unexpectedly move in a direction that takes the vehicle into equipment, columns or people. Also, vehicles should not travel into areas where people move around frequently and don’t expect to see these vehicles. A good example would be shop areas where large toolboxes and power equipment are present. With the noise of work going on and many people carrying material, a scooter/burden carrier moving through this area can be hazardous. At a minimum, if vehicles are allowed in shop areas, they must be driven at the slowest speeds.

• Vehicle Condition - All powered equipment should be checked by the driver at the start of the shift. If your vehicle does not have an inspection list, check with truck repair or the WFG representative in your facility for all items that should be checked daily. Obviously, steering and brakes are vital to the safe operation. In addition, make sure that if the vehicle has safety awareness lighting, it is operating properly.

• Overloading the Vehicle - If too much weight is distributed to the rear of the vehicle the front steering wheels could lose contact with the floor surface should the vehicle hit a bump. Keep loads centered on mobile equipment.

Some other thoughts: Only carry passengers who have their own seat. Report near misses involving mobile equipment so that steps can be taken to prevent another occurrence. 

Powered Industrial Vehicles like fork trucks provide material-handling capabilities, Burden Carriers/Personnel Carriers may provide transportation, but all must be used safely.