Improving the prevention of accidents involving rough-terrain variable-reach trucks.

Rough-terrain variable-reach (RTVR) trucks are widely used in industry, in the building and civil engineering sector, or in farming. Sadly this type of vehicle is too often involved in serious or indeed mortal accidents.
The recent standardisation work done on the dynamic stability of counterbalanced forklift trucks has led experts to ask themselves whether RTVR trucks should comply with the stability requirements contained in Standard NF EN 162033. The first stage consisted in conducting an analysis of the 72 fatal and serious accidents listed in the EPICEA database and in which RTVR trucks were involved, in order to check whether the conditions of occurrence of an accident were the same for both types of vehicle. The results of the analysis show that the way work is organised needs to be improved, and, in particular when work is being done in coactivity, so as to prevent a third person located close to the vehicle from being seriously or fatally injured (56/72). It transpires from the study that accidents where victims are hit or crushed by an RTVR truck (19/72) or where the vehicle is unstable but does not tip over (20/72) lead to numerous situations that are dangerous for a person located close to the vehicle.