 What you're watching is a recreation of a mishap involving a forklift and a pedestrian. From this viewpoint, there doesn't seem to be a logical reason why this mishap occurred. The pedestrian is walking along a marked walkway in plain view. The forklift isn't carrying a load that would obscure the driver's view. However, when the camera is set up to catch the driver's view of the same scene, all that shows up is an empty walkway, until it's too late. There are two important points to be made from this incident. One, a pedestrian can't assume the forklift driver sees him or her, and second, they can't assume a forklift is just like any other vehicle. These points are important to make because of the very large number of mishaps that occur. Tens of thousands of pedestrian injuries are caused by forklifts every year in the United States. Measured against that, there have been no reports of injuries to forklifts from running into pedestrians. To help understand why all these injuries happen, we should go back and look at the assumptions. People tend to assume that forklifts are just like other vehicles, including the one they drove to work that morning, except maybe a bit more nimble since they zip back and forth, and that implies that they aren't especially heavy. It also assumes that they steer and move like automobiles and can stop as quickly. People also assume that, like the other vehicles they're familiar with, forklift drivers can see just about everything around them. The fact that none of these assumptions are true is what gets those tens of thousands of pedestrians injured each year. Take the assumption about what forklifts weigh, for example. Even without a load, they're a lot heavier than they look. This forklift, even empty, weighs about the same as these two automobiles. To allow a forklift to carry a heavy load up front, each one has a heavy counterweight in back. On this model, the counterweight alone weighs close to the same as a small pickup truck. An electric forklift has a smaller counterweight because the battery provides part of the weight. We staged a demonstration of how heavy a forklift battery can be. They didn't even get the full weight of the battery on the back of the pickup before it started to lift the front wheels off the ground. And carrying a load, of course, forklifts are even heavier. This concentrated weight translates into much more severe injuries to pedestrians, much more than people would predict would happen if they hadn't seen the actual results. To illustrate this, we reenacted another mishap, an example of the fourth leading cause of pedestrian injuries, being pinned between a forklift and something else. The driver checked to the right, then backed out. The pedestrian was just coming out from between other forklifts. If this were to happen with a passenger car, it would be a very nasty injury. But to visualize the kind of injury from a forklift counterweight, we replaced Debbie with a turkey drumstick, and she wasn't insulted. Here the forklift is traveling slower than it did in the actual mishap. That's simply too much damage to ever heal. That's why so many pedestrians struck by forklifts have to have limbs amputated. Here's another reenactment of a pedestrian forklift mishap. This incident led to the pedestrian having their foot run over, the ninth leading cause of pedestrian injuries from forklifts. This time we replaced Debbie with a red trash can before the forklift started up again. And now we'll use a pair of drumsticks to replace her feet, to show the effect of being run over by a forklift. Again, if we judged by what would happen if this injury came from a heavy vehicle, we'd predict a nasty injury, some surgery, some weeks in a cast. But the same mishap involving a forklift? Notice in the drumstick run over by the forklift, part of the bone is simply missing. Severe enough damage that it probably leads to an amputation. There's another point to make from this reenactment. A characteristic of powered industrial trucks, forklifts, that increases the chances of one hitting a pedestrian is the way they maneuver. People are used to seeing how cars turn a corner. The front end swings around and the rear follows the same path. But the steering wheels on a forklift are in the rear. So when they turn a corner, that heavy back end swings out. Many of the pedestrian injuries, the struck by and the pinned between forklift and something else, happen this way. Related to that weight and maneuverability is the fact that powered industrial trucks simply can't stop as quickly as other vehicles. Of course, these characteristics don't exist out there just by themselves. They team up with those very bad sight lines to create the severe hazard to pedestrians. To help people appreciate how limited the forklift driver's vision can be, we set up a display at our forklift rodeos. We encourage people to sit in the driver's seat to spot the pedestrian. It's a very worthwhile exercise, one that any employer could easily duplicate to help create a safer workplace. So these are some of the characteristics of forklifts that contribute to the number and severity of injuries to pedestrians in the workplace. The other causes of injuries have to do with where and how forklifts are used in the workplace. The pace of work, the repetitive nature of work and unlike other vehicles, they share the workplace with pedestrians and that leads to complacency and familiarity. And again, pedestrians don't understand how limited the sight lines are from a forklift. Pedestrians struck by powered industrial trucks are the most common causes of injuries. However, there are two other causes that bear mentioning here. Powered industrial trucks striking an object which then strikes a pedestrian. For example, knocking things off the top of a stack or knocking the whole stack over. A load fell or lowered on or pinned a pedestrian. The purpose of this presentation has been to increase people's awareness of the hazards presented by sharing the workplace with forklifts. To help translate this awareness into your own personal safety, we'll give you five rules to remember. Never assume the driver sees you. If you can't make eye contact with the driver, you're in a dangerous position. Keep looking around. Always look both ways. Give forklifts room and just stay away from them. Every company is supposed to have rules for forklift drivers to follow. Protect pedestrians enhance safety. But rules by themselves can't protect pedestrians from injury or death. Because even if the rules say that the driver is always at fault collision with a pedestrian, the drivers are always the ones who get to walk away uninjured. Thousands of pedestrians each year are not that lucky.