Quality assurance and accident prevention for forklift trucks and other industrial trucks

ON THE ROLE OF THE EMPLOYERS’ LIABILITY INSURANCE ASSOCIATIONS IN THE SAFE OPERATION OF INDUSTRIAL TRUCKS

 

Industrial trucks – including forklift trucks in particular – are important and usually indispensable tools in a wide variety of commercial environments. Their performance makes it possible to efficiently move heavy loads in large quantities within the time frames necessary for modern requirements. For this reason, industrial trucks in combination with standardized pallets are among the most important inventions of the modern working world.

However, the vehicles also harbor certain risks. They can cause major damage – whether through operating errors or technical failures that could have been avoided for various reasons.

In order to reduce the potential for damage to an unavoidable residual risk, the employers’ liability insurance associations (BG) and the German Social Accident Insurance (DGUV ) deal with the issue of the commercial use of industrial trucks in general and forklift trucks in particular. Their tasks therefore include assessing potential hazards and developing and issuing corresponding rules and regulations.

 

GERMAN SOCIAL INSURANCE AND STATUTORY ACCIDENT INSURANCE

The role of the employers’ liability insurance associations (not only in relation to industrial trucks) can hardly be explained without going into the general principle of the German social insurance system. One of the aims of this system is to ensure that no person resident in Germany is left without health protection.

When it comes to accidents and illnesses that are not purely related to leisure activities, statutory accident insurance (GUV – not to be confused with the German Social Accident Insurance DGUV) has been in place since 1883.

• Trainees,
• Employees,
• Learners in further vocational training and
• Self-employed (voluntary membership)

are under the protection of the GUV in occupational terms, as is relevant to the topic of industrial trucks. This includes a total of 15 different groups of people with compulsory insurance alone, including schoolchildren and students. All these people are to be protected by the GUV before, after and against accidents at work and occupational illnesses .

However, due to the basic structure of the statutory accident insurance system, the state only acts as the legislator and client. In practice, all tasks relating to information, monitoring and the handling of accidents at work are carried out by the statutory accident insurance institutions. The employers’ liability insurance associations play an important role here.

 

EMPLOYERS’ LIABILITY INSURANCE ASSOCIATIONS AND DGUV: WORKING TOGETHER FOR PROTECTION

Employers’ liability insurance associations are part of the statutory accident insurance institutions – in this case, they are responsible for the entire private sector and, via detours, agriculture and forestry. They are all organized as self-governing corporations under public law and are mainly financed by the contributions collected as part of compulsory membership.

The orientation of the employers’ liability insurance associations is important for the targeted and economical fulfillment of their mandate. For this purpose, they are organized according to sectors or economic branches. For example, the BGHM as the employers’ liability insurance association for the entire wood and metal sector or the BG Bau, responsible for the entire construction industry. There are currently (2022) nine independent employers’ liability insurance associations in Germany.

This division is so important not least because the issues of occupational accidents/occupational illnesses have different relevance in the respective sectors and, above all, are sometimes completely different: In a mining company, for example, employees are subject to completely different risks than in a medium-sized joinery.

In this constellation, the German Social Accident Insurance forms the umbrella organization of the employers’ liability insurance associations. This registered association is the joint umbrella organization of all industrial employers’ liability insurance associations and the accident insurance funds responsible for public sector employees.

 

ACCIDENT PREVENTION AND DGUV REGULATIONS AT A GLANCE

The responsibilities of the employers’ liability insurance associations are twofold. These include the compensation of insured persons (or surviving dependants) in the event of an accident at work. However, the even more important task of the BG is to ensure that it does not get that far in the first place, i.e. that no damage occurs. For this reason, the cooperatives are subject to a very far-reaching obligation to fulfill a prevention mandate.

This includes not least the

• Set up,
• regular checks and
• constant updating

 

accident prevention regulations (UVV) or DGUV regulations – as well as monitoring compliance with them in the respective companies. Although these regulations are not issued by a parliamentary legislator, they have the character of autonomous law due to the statutory powers and obligations of the BG or DGUV within the framework of statutory accident insurance. This means that they are just as binding as any other legal regulation. In addition, each of these regulations is reviewed and approved by the Federal Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs – so neither the BG nor the DGUV can act entirely on their own responsibility.

 

There is also a hierarchical relationship between the various sets of rules:

• DGUV regulations: Ultimately, they “only” represent the document itself.
• Accident prevention regulations: They contain the specific rules and regulations for a particular situation.
• DGUV regulations: practical tips for the implementation of DGUV regulations
• DGUV principles: Basic rules and test regulations that concretize the contents of DGUV regulations
• DGUV information: supplementary information and recommendations for all other regulations

In essence, all of these requirements are intended to apply, specify or specialize for the respective industry where the basic requirements of the Occupational Health and Safety Act or regulations derived from it end. An example illustrates this:

• The Occupational Health and Safety Act is regarded as the supreme, general framework.
• The Construction Site Ordinance is a derived set of regulations specifically for construction sites.
• DGUV regulation 38 supplements the regulations and provides very specific, detailed specifications with the accident prevention regulation for construction work.

Important: Until a few years ago, the official term DGUV- was still used instead of ” Berufsgenossenschaftliche Grundsätzen“, ” Vorschriften ” etc.. If nothing has changed in the documents, these remain valid in the course of standardization as DGUV works , but are often still incorrectly designated (in the document itself). The DGUV has compiled a list that compares the old and new designations and helps with the conversion.

In general usage, however, it is permitted to use the two terms DGUV regulation and accident prevention regulation synonymously, provided that they refer to the regulations for a specific situation. In this sense, it is therefore completely unproblematic to speak of accident prevention regulations for forklift trucks, even if they are all summarized under a specific DGUV regulation.

 

ACCIDENT PREVENTION REGULATIONS AND OTHER DGUV WORKS RELATING TO INDUSTRIAL TRUCKS

Many accident prevention regulations and similar documents only apply in the area of the respective employers’ liability insurance association – simply because some hazards only exist in certain sectors but not in others. However, where hazards occur across all sectors, it is certainly possible for employers’ liability insurance associations to use accident prevention regulations and other guidelines across all sectors and to share them with other (or even all) associations in this way.

Industrial trucks are a good example of this:

1. The work equipment comes in a wide variety of designs, from manually operated pallet trucks to large, all-terrain telescopic forklifts.
2. Due to the way they work and not least because of the widespread use of pallets , industrial trucks are used in numerous industries, even those that are not primarily related to logistics.

The most important DGUV works relating to industrial trucks in general and forklift trucks in particular are therefore not tied to any single trade association. Instead, they apply across all sectors wherever such equipment is used in a commercial or professional environment.

 

The key regulations in this regard are as follows:

• DGUV Regulation 68 Industrial trucks: This is the most important regulation and applies to all industrial trucks that have at least one lifting device – regardless of whether they are powered by muscle power or a motor. This means that conventional pallet trucks (“Ameise”) are covered, as well as every conceivable type of forklift truck. Among other things, this comprehensive work also contains the most important specifications for technical inspections of these devices.
• The Technical Rule for Operational Safety (TRBS) 2111 Part 1 Mechanical hazards – Measures to protect against hazards when using mobile work equipment: This is a rule issued by the Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, which generally deals with self-propelled and externally powered work equipment – including industrial trucks.
• DGUV Principle 308-001: Training and assignment of drivers of industrial trucks with driver’s seat and driver’s platform: This work is, so to speak, the framework training plan that specifies who can and may operate forklift trucks and comparable powered industrial trucks with seats in an operational environment and under what circumstances.
• DGUV-Information 208-004: Forklift truck drivers: It provides (brief) information on the selection and training of forklift truck drivers and, based on this, deals comprehensively with safe operation, health hazards and protective and warning devices.
• DGUV Information 240-250: Instructions for preventive occupational health care in accordance with the German Social Accident Insurance Institution’s Principle G 25 “Driving, controlling and monitoring activities”: A brief overview of legal regulations, occupational health examinations and work procedures and areas.

 

The works mentioned are the most important accident prevention regulations that relate specifically to industrial trucks. However, there are also other regulations that must be observed. They are more general in nature, but include industrial trucks and, in particular, forklift trucks. Important in this context are, for example

• DGUV regulation 79: Use of liquid gas (essential for gas-powered forklifts),
• the Technical Rules for Hazardous Substances (TRGS) 554: Exhaust gases from diesel engines or
• DGUV-Information 208-020: Transport and storage of boards, sawn timber and construction elements.

 

In total, the DGUV lists well over a hundred different sets of regulations in which information relevant to the operation of industrial trucks can always be found. For smaller companies in particular, in which industrial trucks are only supplementary work equipment, this results in a great deal of information that must be observed. However, success proves the principle of comprehensive information absolutely right: in the whole of 2018, there were only five fatal accidents involving industrial trucks in Germany. As there are several million of these in all forms of commercial use in this country, this is certainly a good figure.

 

Image sources:

Image 1: stock.adobe.com © Kadmy

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Image 5: stock.adobe.com © Miljan Živković