New telehandler safety guidance from CPA

The UK’s Construction Plant-hire Association (CPA) has launched a free-to-download four-page guidance document on using telehandlers for lifting and travelling with suspended loads.

It said the new document provided operators with useful safety information on planning, operator training, lifting suspended loads, and travelling with suspended loads.

It added that the document would also form part of the second edition of its Safe Use of Telehandlers in Construction guidance. This was first issued in 2013 and compiled by the CPA in cooperation with the Strategic Forum Plant Safety Group.

In the new Safe Use of Telehandlers in Construction document, the section dealing with tyre replacement and tyre pressures has also been extended, to reflect the importance of tyres on the stability of a telehandler.

More emphasis has also been added to the guidance on use of seatbelts as an essential safeguard to protect the operator if the machine overturns.

Both documents can be downloaded from the CPA website.