DC Velocity - June 2011

For years, forklift manufacturers have made marketing hay out of their vehicles’ operator comfort and safety features, touting amenities like adjustable seats, vibration dampers, and ergonomically designed controls. Recently, though, one manufacturer took operator safety to a new, and perhaps unprecedented, level.

In late April, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. (MHI), the parent company of Mitsubishi Forklift Trucks, delivered the first of two heavy-duty forklifts with radiation-shielded cabins to the crippled Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station in Sendai, Japan. The specially designed trucks will be used for the handling and disposal of contaminated rubble at the site. The second truck was to be delivered in May.

Using its 15-ton heavy-duty forklift as a base, MHI developed and manufactured the radiation-shielded truck in less than a month, the company says. To protect the operator, the first forklift has a fully sealed cabin constructed with 100 mm-thick steel plates and 230 mm-thick lead glass welded on all sides. Both trucks are equipped with special filters that remove dust and other radiation-contaminated material. The air-conditioned cabin is pressurized by an air purifier to prevent external air from entering.

Each forklift will be supplied with a variety of attachments, including hinged forks, a bucket, a box clamp, and pivoting forks. Using these attachments, operators will transfer rubble into low-level radioactive-waste transfer containers. ;

Operators won’t get
“hot” in these forklifts

inbound

Desperately seeking a safe place to sleep

Much of the debate about proposed changes to the truck driver hours of service (HOS) regulations and their effect on safety has focused on time spent behind the wheel. Little has been said about the fact that in many parts of the country, safe places for drivers to take their federally mandated rest breaks are few and far between.

A bill introduced by Rep. Paul Tonko (D-N. Y.) seeks to address that problem. “Jason’s Law” would create a grant program designed to alleviate the shortage of safe parking areas for trucks and help pay for expansion and safety improvements to existing rest areas. The bill is named after long-haul driver Jason Rivenburg, who was murdered in 2009 during a robbery attempt at an abandoned South Carolina gas station. Rivenburg had pulled over to rest after 11 hours of driving as required by federal regulations.

Rivenburg’s widow, Hope, will personally lobby lawmakers to pass the bill into law. She’ll have the backing of several trucking industry groups, including the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, National Association of Truck Stop Operators, Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance, American Moving & Storage Association, and the American Trucking Associations, all of which support the proposal and participated in the May 11 announcement of the bill’s introduction. ;

C.R. England wants some of your hair. No, the Salt Lake City-based truckload carrier isn’t staging a production of the 1960s rock musical. The company now requires a hair sample from job applicants as part of its pre-employment screening.

Testing hair for drug residue is more effective than the federally
mandated urine testing because it screens for a longer period, said
Dustin England, the carrier’s vice president of safety and compli-
ance, in a statement. “With hair testing, we are able to detect
months of time rather than the handful of days checked with stan-
dard urine tests. We found our hair testing positive rate was over
three times higher than the required DOT urine test alone.”
Working with Omega Laboratories Inc., England conducted
both types of tests on applicants over the course of a year. During
the trial, more than 11 percent of job candidates tested positive for
drug use with hair testing, compared with 2. 8 percent with the
standard urine testing mandated by the U.S. Department of
Transportation. The carrier will continue to conduct urine drug
testing as required by law.

The new test will allow the company to keep more potentially dangerous drivers off the road, England said. “That is why we are now firm believers in the benefits of hair testing for the transportation industry.” ;