The Belgian Parliament has recently received statistics issued by the Minister of Labour on accidents at work caused by fork lift trucks (FLT). These results point out that over 2,000 accidents at the workplace were caused annually by FLT between 2000-2004. Out of these accidents, 2 workers per year were killed and in 2005, this figure rose to 5 fatal accidents. Over that period, more than 200 workers lost their job because of permanent invalidity resulting from such accidents.

According to the Minister of Labour, these accidents were caused mainly by:

• Inadequate training of drivers.
• The absence or non compliance of safety measures.
• Defective machinery or poor maintenance.
• Non observance of expected speed for certain tasks were not observed.
• Inadequate supervision by senior staff members.
• Lack of risk assessment.
• Carelessness.
• Hectic work pace.

Source: Vidyas