Key Messages

National Forklift Safety Day (NFSD) returns for 2023 with the theme ‘Safe Sites Save Lives’.

The UK material handling sector’s foremost safety campaign, National Forklift Safety Day, returns for 2023 with a new theme focussing on improved site safety.

Backed by the slogan ‘Safe Sites Save Lives’, the campaign will run throughout the year. It will be different to previous campaigns as it will be a multi-layered promotion, with the focal point being National Forklift Safety Day itself, which this year falls on Tuesday 13th June.

Find out More: https://nationalforkliftsafetyday.co.uk/nfsd-2023/

National Forklift Safety Day (NFSD) returns for 2022 with the theme of Operator Training. 

The 2022 campaign focuses on the importance of the life cycle of operator training and its vital contribution to the safety of all people on your site.

Every year there are serious injuries, including fatalities, to truck operators and to pedestrians and co-workers, which could have been prevented if properly trained staff had followed safe systems of work. In fact, ‘struck by a moving vehicle’ is the second most common cause of workplace fatality, accounting for 25 deaths in the year 2020/21.

National Forklift Safety Day (NFSD) returns for 2021 with a new theme focussed on ensuring that all material handling equipment (MHE) remains safe for use.

NFSD 2021 is for the first time being promoted by the UK Material Handling Association, the new voice in UK material handling formed by the merger of the industry’s two most respected trade associations – BITA (British Industrial Truck Association) and the FLTA (Fork Lift Truck Association).

Our key message for 2020 is that Management is responsible for segregating pedestrians from Materials Handling equipment.

This is best achieved by physical barriers, but the importance of traffic planning, route marking and effective information delivery is also emphasised.

We are calling for mangers not to be the barrier to forklift safety, instead they should let the barrier be the barrier by recognising that segregation saves lives. Effective segregation of workplace transport is your legal obligation. The vast majority of fatalities and serious injuries caused by impact with pedestrians are wholly avoidable by traffic route demarcation, physical barriers and other simple measures.

For more information download our NFSD 2020 booklet

The theme for the inaugural UK event was that that management is responsible for ensuring operator restraints, such as seat belts, are being used because they save lives.

 The primary purpose of the operator restraint on a forklift truck is to keep the operator within the protective structure (“cab”) in the event of a tip-over. It prevents the operator from sliding out of, or attempting to jump away from, the cab, and being crushed between the framework and the ground. Management responsibility extends beyond provision of equipment and training, and includes a requirement to enforce the use of safety equipment.

For more information download our NFSD 2019 booklet