June 6, 2018—Throughout their workdays, technicians are consistently working under multi-ton vehicles, one wrong move away from a potentially catastrophic accident. This was especially evidenced by a December incident where a technician was killed after a car fell off a lift.
“Automotive service and repair is perhaps the only industry where it’s accepted and expected that the employee would walk under a full load,” said R.W. “Bob” O’Gorman, president of the Automotive Lift Institute.
Because of this, O’Gorman says shops need to have a special emphasis on lift safety.
“Proper training of the technicians, maintenance of the lifts is key,” O’Gorman says. “Both of those issues really are right up there with annual inspections of the lift.”
Proper training, O’Gorman says, means learning to eliminate user error, which most lift accidents are caused by, and being familiar with and using ALI’s Vehicle Lifting Points Guide. O’Gorman says it’s also vital for shops to be clean, and for workers to do daily inspections of their lifts.
Additionally, here are a few of the resources ALI offers for shops on its website:
- A “Lifting it Right” safety manual and online course, which was updated in October.
- An interactive online certificate course, which allows for the basic requirements of lift operator training to be met.
- Shop safety posters, which visually run through the 13 different points of lift safety.
Lift safety has been noted in several past Ratchet+Wrench stories. Here are two links to check out:
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