We know that a severe injury can turn your life upside down in one split second, negatively impacting your career, family life, and finances. Morgan & Morgan see the devastating consequences of construction and workplace accidents every day. According to the National Safety Council (NSC), forklifts caused 7,290 nonfatal injuries and 78 work-related fatalities in 2020.
Insurance Company Data Breach Attorneysįorklifts are heavy and potentially dangerous vehicles that can cause catastrophic injuries and deaths.If you've been injured in a forklift accident in New York, call 21 to discuss the steps needed to recover compensation.
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Most of all, drivers must be on the lookout for any behavior that could jeopardize the operation such as exceeding the load center or the forklift maximum weight.įiling a Forklift Accident Lawsuit in New YorkĪt Raphaelson & Levine, NYC accident attorneys have helped hundreds of injured workers recover compensation.If the operator’s vision is impaired due to the size of the load, a spotter is essential for the safe completion of the lift or if the forklift must be driven backward.Arrange for a spotter if there is any potential obstacle that could have serious consequences if hit by the forklift or blind spots along the way.
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Verify that the charge on the forklift is adequate to the task (at least 1/2 full for normal loads and 3/4 full for heavy loads).To minimize the incidence of accidents involving forklifts, the Association recommends that contractors, developers, owners, and operators do the following: The ITA strongly advises forklift operators, “to take precautions to minimize accident potential.” “Despite the best intentions of workers, safety agencies, and employers, the possibility for accidents to occur always exists.” “Working with a forklift requires constant attention to the hazards in front, above and around the area of operation,” Raphaelson said. The ITA also points out that training can reduce the severity of an accident. (1.2 percent).Īccording to the ITA, studies show that most accidents could have been prevented by better training. OSHA data reveals that fatalities involving forklifts occur most often in manufacturing facilities (42 percent), followed by construction sites (23.8 percent), wholesale trade businesses (12.5 percent), transportation providers (11 percent), retail trade stores (9 percent) and in mining operations. In addition to tip over, according to OSHA, forklift accidents also occur when operators are crushed between the vehicle and a surface (25 percent) when workers are crushed between two vehicles (11 percent) when workers are struck or run over by a forklift (10 percent), when workers are struck by falling material (8 percent) and when workers fall from a platform on the forks (4 percent). Add to that, 34,900 serious injuries and 61,800 non-serious injuries.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) estimates there are about 85 forklift fatalities in the U.S. “A forklift operator’s chances of being injured on the job are very high, which means more needs to be done to prevent these vehicles from tipping over.” “This is a very frightening number,” Howard Raphaelson, a partner in the New York construction accident law firm of Raphaelson & Levine. Therefore, by their own statistics, more than 750,000 forklifts will be involved in some type of accident at worksites in the next 8 years.
The ITA also estimates that approximately 90 percent of all forklifts in operation today will be involved in some type of accident before the vehicle is put out of commission. Their data shows the useful lifespan of one of these powerful machines is 8 years. In fact, according to the Industrial Truck Association (ITA), which represents the manufacturers of lift trucks and their suppliers who do business in Canada, the United States or Mexico, 42 percent of all forklift accidents involved in construction accident lawsuits are caused by a tip-over.Īccording to Association data, there are approximately 855,900 forklifts in operation in the U.S. According to industry experts, the main cause of forklift accidents and injuries in the U.S.
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