E94 6 Things Great Safety Managers NEVER Do

Don't forget your purpose.

And stay with me on this, because I want to explain this.

When I was there, I had a question that came up, and it's a very specific question, but we were talking about forklifts and seatbelts.

And if you've listened to this channel for any amount of time, or if you're involved with safety at all, you know seatbelts on forklifts are very, very important.

And a sit-down forklift, it needs to have a seatbelt on it.

And so when I was talking about this, I just kind of said it in passing.

We weren't even talking about forklifts.

We were talking about just safety in general.

And I mentioned that forklifts must have a seatbelt.

And at the break, I had a manager come up to me and said, hey, David, you were talking about seatbelts.

Is that an OSHA compliance? Like, is that something we have to do? Does OSHA say that we have to have seatbelts? And I said, why do you ask? And I wasn't trying to be rude or snarky, but here's the thing.

It is not an OSHA regulation that a forklift has to have a seatbelt.

You know how I know that? I just looked it up.

It should be, it should be a requirement.

And you can go into some letters of interpretation and you can talk about things, but if a forklift has a seatbelt, you have to wear it.

And a sit-down forklift, a seatbelt will literally save the operator's life.

If that forklift turns over and the operator falls out, they're gonna be killed.

So forklifts need seatbelts.

And the way I think about this, and you kind of let you inside my head, okay? If my son or my daughter or my brother or my sister or anybody that I love and care about was driving a forklift for your company and you didn't have a seatbelt on it, I would be really upset.

That's irresponsible.

It's not safe.

You can't do it that way.

Now, when he asked me that question, he wasn't asking me out of being malicious.

He wasn't thinking, well, these employees don't deserve a seatbelt.

What he said was, our forklift is so old, and the last trainer that came in, he warned us not to put a seatbelt on it because if you put an aftermarket seatbelt on it, it won't be OSHA-approved or OSHA-compliance.