Did you know that there are over 1500 injuries every year caused by forklift trucks and other industrial machinery? Whilst some of these might be unavoidable, the vast majority occur through misoperation and negligence. These can be easily avoided if operators are educated properly.

An example of this is overloading your forklift, which can cause unnecessary danger, and injury and can be the cause of many accidents. Overloading the capacity of a forklift often results in the forklift truck tipping and falling, this causes damage to the machine and stock but more importantly to the operator. 

Close to one out of every four fatalities occurs when a forklift tips over. Forklifts can easily tip if they are overloaded, if the load is not well balanced, or if they travel with the forks too high. This is just a small section of the issues that can be caused by regularly overloading the capacity of the machine.

There’s A Reason The Capacity Is There

The majority of forklift operators understand the capacity of the machines they use and the importance of sticking to them. 

However, it is not uncommon for those who operate forklifts on a regular or irregular basis to become less strict with their weight load over time, attempting to put a little extra weight onto pallets or trying to estimate the load sizes rather than weighing them. This can often cause forklifts to be unstable and tip over, causing these accidents and injuries, and sometimes even fatalities. There are other impacts that overloading your machine can have, including increased component wear and reduced braking.

Counterbalanced Loads

Counterbalance forklifts are designed to balance the weight of the forks plus the load with the weight of the truck itself held by the back axle. With the weight of the truck offsetting the load, specific limits are required to keep the back of the forklift heavier, and the back wheels firmly on the ground. 

These instructions must be adhered to due to the forklift being a moving vehicle. When a forklift is static it may look balanced with its rear wheels on the ground, but add speed, turning, lifting and moving into the mix and this is when your counterbalanced weight will feel the effects. This is then worsened by things like terrain and incline. 

To be sure that the load on the forklift remains balanced, and secure during loading and transit is to always stay under the capacity limits. 

Establish Weight Loads

Once you establish the load capacity, you should always strive to ensure you only load the forklift with loads within this weight capacity. The weight of the load can be found by its labelling, or by manually using a weight scale. Scales are usually attached to the hydraulic system of the forklift and they have sensors that measure the weight of the load placed onto the forklift. This way you can avoid overloading the forklift, and therefore avoid any accidents or injuries.

Making sure that your forklift trucks have the capacity to lift your products is key to maintaining safety throughout your operation. If you require more information on the right capacity forklift for your operation then get in touch with our expert team.