The competent training of fork lift truck operators is essential to maintain safe working practices. IT is often wrongly assumed that, because someone has a licence, they are a good, safe operator. Whilst this should normally be true it does depends on who did the training. It would be fair to say there are a lot of cowboy trainers out there.
To ensure you are getting proper training you should ask the training provider if they are accredited and if so, by whom? There are five accrediting organisations in the UK although three of these are usually associated with more specialised trucks. The RTITB and ITSSAR are the two accrediting bodies that most people use for reach and counterbalanced truck training.
It is these bodied that lay down things such as the course durations, instructor/pupil ratio and to a large extent, the course content. When considering the price of training always remember that anything can be done worse for less money and if you think that training is expensive, try having an accident!!
The main items relating to fork lift operator training are shown below with links to the appropriate pages.
