Winter has come and gone, and we move on to another season that causes safety concerns when operating your forklifts outdoors. Spring is filled with rain showers; as the adage goes, “April showers bring May Flowers.” We want to help ensure your forklift operators are safe and dry during the rainy season.
PROPER EQUIPMENT MATTERS
The proper equipment matters when working in inclement weather; for both the forklift and operators. Proper rain gear is a must when operating equipment outside, from ventilated rainproof gear to work boots with solid tread. They’re ways to outfit your forklift to help keep the operator dry and the truck itself dry. If you don’t purchase your forklift with a solid cab enclosure, they’re detachable enclosures that you can put around the forklifts cab.
VISIBILITY ON THE JOB SITE
It might sound obvious, but visibility is extremely important when operating your forklift around the yard in poor weather. Your forklift has many blind spots, including that giant mast right in front of your face. If you’re a lumber yard or other outdoor company, you”ll neeed a forklift with an enclosed cab. They come equipped with a front and rear windshield wiper to help with the visibility issue to an extent.
SLOW DOWN
What is the rush? When the weather is poor and operating conditions are less than ideal-slow down! Just like having less visibility than a car, your forklift brakes don’t work as well as the ones on your car. You have less room for error if you go full speed ahead in rainy, wet conditions. Just like operating in snowy conditions, you want to check your tire treads on pneumatic tires. The more wear on the tire, the greater the chance you’ll have less traction to keep you going forward in the rain.
NOR RAIN, SLEET, OR SNOW
There is a reason Toyota forklift are the most dependable forklift on the market today! An electric forklift will run in the rain with no problem because of its IPXX rating. IP means International Protection code, and the XX is the level of protection. Electric Toyota operates at an IP54 rating, the five being the level of a solid material it can withstand and the four being the level of wet material it can withstand. Anything under four would denote that the truck might not be safe for outdoor use during wet conditions.
