According to the National Safety Council, injuries sustained from tripping and falling are a major contributor to serious injuries and even unintentional death in the United States. In 2014 more than 31,000 people died from injuries sustained from a fall. These types of injuries account a large number of general industrial incidents, often resulting in workers compensation claims. Additionally, these types of injuries sustained in areas open to the public may result in personal injury lawsuits against the establishment.
Warehouses, construction sites, factories, automobile repair facilities and the like often have material handling tools and other machinery such as forklifts or pallet jacks temporarily or semi-permanently stationed throughout. Most warehouse stores such as Home Depot or Costco are heavily crowded by the consuming public where products are mostly placed and displayed on pallets. Employees often use forklifts or pallet jacks to move the pallets during and after business hours. In the automobile repair shop setting, automobiles are lifted by car lift machines which include floor plates or drum grips. When not in use, unsuspecting consumers or employees may trip over or walk into a low-sitting portion of the machinery such as the forks of a forklift, pallet jack or car lift machine, or the bed of a low-sitting platform truck cart.
Safety barriers may be used to surround the entire machinery or a portion thereof in the form of posts with safety nets, retractable belts or hazard tape therebetween. Alternatively, if a machine operator leaves machinery in a warehouse aisle, the entire aisle may be closed to prevent pedestrians from walking by. While such devices can provide effective barricades, they generally require multiple posts to surround the machinery and present problems such as a time-consuming installation requiring one or more persons, and the need for a large area to store the devices when not in use. Another problem to be solved with current safety devices is that once a user decides to set up the device, the user must leave the machinery unattended to retrieve the safety device and an unsuspecting pedestrian may trip over the machinery during that time.
For the foregoing reasons, what is needed is a safety apparatus to serve as a barrier and to provide sufficient notice to pedestrians of a machinery trip hazard. Further, the safety apparatus should be able to be quickly assembled by a single user, and preferably attachable directly to machinery for riding along with the machinery when not in use.
A safety device attachable to a forklift vehicle having a horizontal fork and a vertical mast, includes a pole, preferably of adjustable length, and at its lower end a stand and extending vertically upward. The stand is releasably attached, preferably through use of a magnet, to the horizontal fork when deploying the safety device. A retractable belt is attached to the upper end of the stand and horizontally extends to near the vertical mast of the forklift where it is similarly releasably attached, preferably by a magnet. And when the safety device is not deployed, and instead in storage while the forklift is being used to move goods, the pole is releasably attached, preferably by one or more magnets, to other portions of the vehicle away from the horizontal fork.
A method for preventing tripping over a material handling machine having a substantial vertical portion and a substantial horizontal portion near the ground with a distal end extending into an aisle, include steps of attaching a pole to the distal end of the substantial horizontal portion extending upwardly when the material handling machine is idle. Another step is extending a retractable barrier horizontally from near the top end of the pole towards the substantial vertical portion and attaching it there. The method may further include adjusting the length of the pole. The attaching steps may be accomplished by positioning a magnet on the safety device near portions of the metallic the material handling machine. When preparing to use the material handling machine to move goods, the steps are reversed and the safety device is detached, the barrier retracted, and the pole may be collapsed. Then the device is attached to the machine and held in storage for next use when the machine is idle.
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The foregoing descriptions of embodiments have been presented only for purposes of illustration and description. They are not intended to be exhaustive or to limit the present invention to the forms disclosed. Accordingly, many modifications and variations will be apparent to practitioners skilled in the art. Additionally, the above disclosure is not intended to limit the present invention. The scope of the present invention is defined by the appended claims.
Insofar as the description above and the accompanying drawings disclose any additional subject matter that is not within the scope of the claims below, the inventions are not dedicated to the public and the right to file one or more applications to claim such additional inventions is reserved.
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