Federal Law (29CFR1910.178) states that forklift and powered pallet truck operators must be trained by a “Qualified” instructor, and retrained every three years.

The law also states that the operator must be retrained if they have an accident or a “near miss” even if no damage.

Another term for a “near miss” is a “close call”.

Almost no one keeps track of close calls, after all, “no real harm was done”.

This is not only a dangerous attitude, it is a violation of the law!

If near misses and close calls don’t get noticed, your employee will fail to learn the valuable lessons that come from these events.

The failure to notice close calls is a very dangerous attitude; because if you don’t notice, you won’t correct it.

Close calls are a sign that conditions or behaviors exist at a workplace.

As a professional member of The American Society of Safety Engineers, I am very familiar with something called the Heinrich Pyramid.

This pyramid illustrates that for every fatal accident there will be 3—5 non fatal accidents and 10—15 incidents.  But there will also be hundreds if not a thousand unreported “close calls”.

Supervisors and managers must be trained to regard a near miss or close call as a Red Flag—a sign that something is very wrong and requires attention.