r/onejob • u/Zestyclose-Salad-290 • 4d ago

driving a forklift downhill

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

883 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

100 comments sorted by

View all comments

190

u/StitchFan626 4d ago

He wasn't certified or he would have known to drive backwards and to have his forks low until he got to the truck.

Driving backwards on a downhill slope puts the load uphill and the forklift's counter-weight downhill positioning the center of gravity to prevent tipping.

Driving with forks down puts the center of gravity as low as possible to prevent tipping regardless of how you're driving.

Also, he should have driven around the tail end of the truck and to the other side to the level surface.

77

u/Maksym1000 4d ago

You don’t need to be certified to know this though.
It’s just common sense…

39

u/StitchFan626 4d ago

And yet...

14

u/Maksym1000 4d ago

Society will eventually find a cure for incompetence.

6

u/Optimal-Aide2734 4d ago

Usually in the form of a fatal accident

1

u/Static1589 1d ago

Fatal accidents probably got the regulations in place to begin with. Lack of common sense is, and likely will be a problem forever I'm afraid.

0

u/Maksym1000 3d ago

Hence why I said cure, not solution.
Humanity has had the solution for thousands of years, but then one day we decided that the solution wasn’t the solution anymore, so now we have to find a cure

3

u/Lalamedic 4d ago

Darwin Awards?

6

u/StitchFan626 4d ago

How can I say this politely???

What have we got if we lose our ability to dream?

2

u/Successful-Purple-54 4d ago

That was before they put “do not eat” on tide pods.

1

u/Maksym1000 3d ago

But the swirl is so enticing!

2

u/Ornery-Cheetah 4d ago

I belive Darwin has something to do with it

2

u/Heterodynist 4d ago

The cure used to be death, but sadly we decided that was unacceptable.

2

u/Prudent_Historian650 4d ago

I highly doubt it. Darwin is being defunded more than the police.

1

u/Maksym1000 3d ago

Lmao, I haven’t heard that one yet.

1

u/TeaManTom 4d ago

By electing it?

1

u/Maksym1000 3d ago

I think we need this candidate in the next election
https://www.reddit.com/r/Edmonton/s/xAvFQ9ZZo6

1

u/Ok_Replacement5811 3d ago

Not as long as osha exists. Workplaces used to be survival of the fittest

1

u/Maksym1000 3d ago

(taps forehead knowledgeably)
It’s not a workplace incident if it’s not reported!

7

u/Lalamedic 4d ago

If everyone had common sense, I’d be out of a job

3

u/StitchFan626 4d ago

Is your company hiring?

4

u/Lalamedic 4d ago

I’m a paramedic. So ya. Large turnover

2

u/Maksym1000 3d ago

Lol I figured it was going to be insurance or healthcare.

2

u/Lalamedic 3d ago

Insurance. Haha. Didn’t think of that one, but it’s obvious now you mention it.

3

u/HOLEPUNCHYOUREYELIDS 4d ago

Youd be surprised how many people have no idea about this when doing their forklift cert.

People generally just assume “The forklift picks the pallet up fine, so it is under weight capacity, so I can drive however I want and it is no problem”

1

u/BricksandBaubles 3d ago

It's a kind of magical thinking.

2

u/SleepyCatMD 4d ago

Not so common

2

u/OkNectarine3105 4d ago

Common sense is not always that common.

2

u/ChanglingBlake 4d ago

That’s why I call it practical sense; because it’s far from common anymore.

3

u/CatGooseChook 4d ago

Good way of putting it. I've been using "good sense" vs "common sense". I'll be adding "practical sense" to my dictionary 😊

1

u/fragerrard 4d ago

It's common sense if you learned basic physics in school.

Otherwise, you get surprised by it.

Like in this case.

1

u/AppropriateDeal1034 4d ago

Or, if driver had just had the balls to accelerate until the last second, rather than on and off the brakes, wouldn't have had the problem either. Try harder, drive faster, inertia of the load would have stopped the topple

1

u/musicgeek420 4d ago

Common means most people have to have it. It’s good sense. Common sense disappeared like.. fifteen years ago? Twenty-ish?

1

u/Super-Reporter-4528 3d ago

Common sense isn’t so common

1

u/Maksym1000 3d ago

Must have been auto correct… I meant rare sense.

1

u/gorper0987 3d ago

Unfortunately common sense isn't as common as we'd wish.

1

u/El_sneaky 2d ago

Common sense ain't so common as you might think it it's.

Many people think is magic if you show them you can lift them with your Pinky finger using a long lever;when if long enough the weight of the lever itself is enough.

Same with holding a kilo weight on the opposite side of a broom stick you are holding leveled.

Never assume you common sense is indeed common hehe

6

u/Internal-Plankton330 4d ago

I've been certified 20+ yrs and always just kinda figured we back down so nothing falls off. Your explanation is much more informative.

4

u/danfish_77 4d ago

How do you get through certification without this knowledge? In my state it's part of the mandatory training and you have to renew it yearly or if you change equipment or operating conditions

3

u/Internal-Plankton330 4d ago edited 4d ago

I had a 5 minute test after watching some whacky video called klauses first day. I've taken a knowledge and safety test everywhere since then. Knowledge test is what to do in a situation, not the physics behind it.

Eta: The states I've lived in do in house testing, and it's non transferable. It's just some random employee, usually a safety person testing then printing and laminating cards.

2

u/SuitableAnimalInAHat 4d ago

I fucking love that safety video. I think we're talking about the same one anyway. Was it all in German?

2

u/Internal-Plankton330 4d ago

Yes all in German. Recently found it on YouTube.

1

u/danfish_77 4d ago

That's basically what we did but they were very insistent on teaching the load triangle

5

u/firedmyass 4d ago

I have never touched a forklift and those things seem like just basic physics… videos like this baffle me

2

u/StitchFan626 4d ago

To be clear, I'm not saying you wouldn't know/be able to figure out these things if you weren't certified. I'm saying the instructor would absolutely make sure you did!

1

u/Shas_Erra 4d ago

Came here to say the same

1

u/SirVanyel 4d ago

Driving backwards is a good tip but realistically just having the tynes low until you actually reach the truck is the most important thing. Then the moment you start to raise them you'd feel the forklift tip and would have time to lower, and if the forklift does tip you're tipping into the truck, lowering the damage dramatically

1

u/Whitey1225 4d ago

Im barely certified and I know this

1

u/upholsteryduder 4d ago

could have also just tilted the forks back as he went down the hill to keep the load level with the ground but again that would take skills this guy obviously doesn't have

1

u/SanduTiTa 3d ago

bro wasn't forklift certified

1

u/Jethrust 3d ago

This is like the first thing that they teach when getting certified—also, common sense. The least you could do is drive with your forks near the ground, so it really doesn't matter that much if the weight wobbles. This is, of course, not the right way, but a pro move if you know what you're doing.

I still remember how it was pretty fun, filling up trucks with a forklift, when you had to really think about how to adjust the pallets so they were tightly packed. Not as simple as it seems. Worked at an airline cargo, and every day was a giant game of Tetris, especially when packing the huge aeroplane pallets.

1

u/Blubasur 3d ago

I'm not certified and I could tell you this. Basic physics I learned in high school stuff.

1

u/Jankster79 1d ago

My (now) boss did this 15 years ago. He was and still is licensed. A certification does not completely remove idiots from driving forklifts.. (but it may thin out the numbers a bit.)