USA: Powered Industrial Trucks Design Standard Update

 

The American Occupational Safety and Health Administration OSHA proposed to update the design and construction requirements of the powered industrial trucks standards for general industry and construction.  The update should happen by incorporating by reference the applicable provisions of the most relevant national consensus standards from the American National Standards Institute/Industrial Truck Standards Development Foundation (ANSI/ITSDF).

In scope are vehicles such as fork trucks, tractors, platform lift trucks, motorized hand trucks, and other specialized industrial trucks powered by electric motors or internal combustion engines.

OSHA’s general industry powered  industrial trucks standard at 29 CFR 1910.178 contains safety requirement for such vehicles.  The standard requires that all new powered industrial trucks acquired and used by an employer meet the design and construction requirements established in the American National Standard for Powered Industrial Trucks, Part II, ANSI B56.1–1969. 29 CFR 1910.178(a)(2). In addition, OSHA’s standard requires that all approved trucks bear a label or some other identifying mark indicating approval by a nationally recognized testing laboratory, as also required by paragraph 405 of that same ANSI standard.

Since OSHA adopted the 1969 version of the ANSI B56.1, ANSI has revised its B56.1 consensus standard twelve times (in 1975, 1983, 1988, 1993, 2000, 2004, 2005, 2009, 2012, 2016, 2018, and 2020).

Therefore, the proposed rule would update the references in 29 CFR 1910.178(a) and 29 CFR 1926.602(c) to recognize the design and construction requirements in the latest editions of the ANSI B56 consensus standards for powered industrial trucks (i.e., ANSI B56.1–2020, Safety Standards for Low Lift and High Lift Trucks; ANSI B56.5–2019, Safety Standards for Driverless, Automatic Guided Industrial Vehicles and Automated Functions of Manned Industrial Vehicles; ANSI B56.6–2021, Safety Standards for Rough Terrain Forklift Trucks). For both general industry and construction, OSHA would incorporate by reference these latest ANSI B56 consensus standards.

OSHA also proposes allowing employers to use powered industrial trucks not constructed in accordance with those national consensus standards incorporated by reference in the OSHA standards if the employer can demonstrate that the truck they use was designed and constructed in a manner that provides employee protection that is at least as effective as the national consensus standards incorporated by reference in OSHA’s standards.

The full version of the OSHA rule can be found HERE.

For other types of vehicles, such as passenger or commercial vehicles, the applicable technical standards are developed by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.  These are the so called FMVSS Standards (Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards).