Ep. #37: Improve Pedestrian Safety

This episode of Right from the Source features Carly Lever. A regional sales vice president with Reite Height. She talks about the dangers that exist for pedestrians. can help keep them safe. Expert insights on safety, security, and the same. productivity, energy savings, and the energy. Environmental control. and inside your industrial or commercial facilities.

Welcome listeners. This is Right from the Source, and with us today we have Carly Leveran who's going to be talking about pedestrian safety with us today. I'm excited to be here, Ken. Thanks for having me. Alright, wonderful. So First, let's give the listeners a little bit of background about yourself. Uh what do you do for Right Height? Absolutely. So I am a regional sales vice president at Right Height. I've been in the industry for about five years now.

Um honestly, I just moved to Milwaukee, so I'm having a really fun time. exploring the city and all it has to offer. So if you have any Milwaukee tips, we'll have to chat afterwards. Um but yeah, I love working for Right Hate. I love loading dock equipment. So I'm excited to talk to you today. Any hobbies or passions outside of work? Well, like I said, still discovering the area, still discovering the hobbies. They change based upon the season. So right now

Milwaukee's kind of been the hobby. Awesome. I love to hear that. So today's topic is gonna be about pedestrian safety and any successful business has to also be a safe one. I think most people realize that. Yet accidents happen all the time, especially in facilities with loading docks and heavy machinery. When pedestrians are involved, those accidents can be serious, even deadly. So can you talk a little bit about some of those unfortunate stats and dangers that lead to those numbers?

Ken, you're absolutely right. The industry we're in is statistically a dangerous one. In fact, OSHA list fork trucks as the fourth leading cause of backover fatalities. The second leading cause of backover fatalities is tractor trailing. Another stat that I think is important to talk about is one from the National Safety Council. It states that in 2020, outside of COVID-19, the number one reason for missed workdays.

was overexertion and bodily reaction. The number two reason for missed workdays was slips, trips, and falls. Now, there's correlation between these classifications and industrial labor jobs. So basically what that means is anyone working in distribution, manufacturing, processing is exposed to those risks. You did mention forklifts being involved in some of these pedestrian accidents. Let's start inside the facility and discuss some ways to help improve safety for forklift operators.

And the employees who work alongside them? Well, it's obvious that fork trucks are heavy, right? Even without loads, they can be about 9,000 pounds give or take. So, training employees and safely training employees on the operation and how to interact with forklifts is so important.

We see a lot of our clients have adopted what's called a blue light policy, and basically that serves as a heads up for passerbys that there's a fork truck near. Now at right height, we've taken that blue light policy and we've built upon it. So you're gonna see this in different areas at the facility. So starting at the loading dock, we have something called pedestrian view, and basically that reinforces the blue light at the dock.

Within the aisleways and the racking we have something called safety view. And then throughout the facility you're gonna see basically like a traffic style light that's called our safety signal. Can you talk a little bit more about pedestrian view and just how that kind of takes the the blue light policy, the forklift and really makes it uh a prominent feature of the loading dock? Yeah.

I'm so glad you asked because pedestrian view to me is super important. So I love to talk about it. So, as you know, fork trucks usually have a blue light on the back. Well, as they're loading and unloading those trailers, Think about it, that fork truck is going about 53 feet back into the trailer. And so as you're walking the docks as a pedestrian, you're almost playing peekaboo to see where is that blue light? Is there a fork truck in the trailer?

So what Righthead does is we put motion sensors on the door that detect motion going into and out of the trailer. The kicker here is when motion is detected, there will be a blue light that shines on the face of the level. Why is that important? Because when you're walking the dock, as opposed to peeking into each and every trailer, you can see right away and very clearly that there's a blue light, meaning there's a four.

And then th the safety view and the safety signal, how are they different? Yeah, I'm glad you asked. So with this safety view, it is again just reinforced communication when traffic is present. So when things are approaching, you're gonna get a light. The Safety signal is more like a traffic style light, right? So I always tell people if you can get to work, hopefully you know what these different symbols mean, right? You've got your yield, you've got your stop.

Um the important thing to note here, Ken, is when motion is detected from multiple directions. There will be a stop light symbol, but we don't want people to have to look up all the time because we understand they're gonna stop looking up. So when there is that stoplight, there will also be a blue light that shines down on the ground. And that again just increases that visibility for the worker.

So besides blue light policies, uh sensors, LEDs, all the things that kind of go into that package that you were talking about, are there other ways to help improve pedestrian safety inside a facility? Actually, we recommend barriers because they are a physical and visual deterrent. Especially in those pedestrian PIT areas. So when it comes to barriers, there's really two different styles, right? You have a fixed barrier or you have a removable barrier.

At Right Hate, all of our barriers go through what's referred to as a barrier load and speed test, also known as a blast rating. But for us it's really important to understand what is the impact ability you need in a given area and what's the accessibility. How frequently are you getting into said area?

and we build our barriers based upon what you're doing. All right, so we talked about some of the the barriers on the inside of a facility. What about at the loading dock where you need to have the access of getting into the the trailer um and and out of the trailer but also still might want to have some protection. I completely get where you're coming from. Two barriers that come to mind for me are number one, the safety lip on our levelers.

That helps with fork truck fall-off protection and the other is a dock guardian. So those are two barriers that work well at the dock and still grant that accessibility into the trailer. So with the the safety lip, like how big of a lip is that? That's gonna be able to stop a forklift? Surprisingly, yes. So there are five or seven inch lips. And like I said with the barrier load and speed test, those have been tested to stop fork drive.

And with a dock guardian, can you get into some of the specifics on on the design of this? I again I'm just kind of thinking about something that is gonna be able to stop a fork truck which is obviously extremely heavy without even carrying anything.

No, I get where you're coming from and it's important to talk about. So when it comes to the Doc Guardians, there are different makes and models, again, depending on what you're trying to do. So we have a light duty and then we have our heavy duty models. And basically the way that these work is

Think about almost like a seatbelt, right? So you just pull these from one side to the other. They're retractable barriers, very easy to use. Believe me, I can use it, which means anybody can. The big thing again is that barrier load and speed test. Each given barrier is tested to stop different weights based upon if it's a light duty, medium duty, heavy.

And that's kind of right height, I feel like going above and beyond because otherwise the industry standard is what typically like four miles an hour or something. It's pretty generic. So for us we want to make sure that specific to the given application. And back to those Dock Guardians too, different styles, but one style that I particularly like and we see a lot in facilities these days.

Is the Dock Guardian that meets the OSHA 1910.29 mandate, which again is for that pedestrian fall-off and fork truck.

So keeping it at the loading dock here, um specifically outside on the approach, you mentioned that tractor trailers are unfortunately involved in the the second most back over fatalities in the US. So How can pedestrian safety be enhanced in this area to help prevent those kinds of tragedies? And is there equipment that can help with those challenges?

Yeah, I honestly don't even like to think about backover accidents at something that makes my stomach hurt, but the reality is, and statistically, it does happen. So some ways to help prevent that, number one would be vehicle restraints, right? The sole purpose of a vehicle restraint is to keep people safe during the loading and unloading process.

Something else, whenever I'm talking to a client that has pedestrians in the approach, right? Maybe it's somebody going outside to chalk wheels, maybe it's somebody putting up a trailer stand, maybe somebody doing routine maintenance. Anytime there's a pedestrian in the approach, we recommend hazard recognition and control. Now there's something called approach view, and basically Ken what it is is a motion sensor.

It detects a truck backing in and when that motion is detected, you will get an audible alarm, and that's the universal sound of reverse, and then you also get a strobe light. So it gives pedestrians the time and the resources to get out of the way. Yeah, two things that I think people are gonna notice that flashing light and that audible beep beep noise. Exactly. It's massive.

So I f I feel like we covered most of the things that we wanted to hear today about pedestrian safety, but is there anything that you feel like we missed, Carly, that you wanted to talk about some more or anything that we might have just missed completely? Well you did a great job of asking questions first and foremost. So thank you for having me today. Like I mentioned before, everything for us is very application specific.

So I always recommend to people if there's an area where you think, hey, things can be safer and I just don't know the next step from here. Give one of our reps a call because reality is we have a solution for you. Our goal is to help people in and out of facilities on and off work drive.

No, I love that response. I know that Right Height's always looking ahead, that you're always there as a a good, helpful partner, and uh safety is definitely at the top of that list for uh for Right Height. That's the truth. Thank you so much, Ken. Yeah, thanks for being on the show today, Carly. For you listeners out there, be sure to follow RightHeight on all social media platforms. Visit RightHeight.com for additional information or to connect with a team member. Thanks.

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