Learning Objectives

• Recognize and describe the typical hazards found on loading docks.

• Identify controls and actions to improve safety on loading docks.

Lesson Description

Intro to Loading Dock Safety provides a high-level overview of the typical hazards encountered on loading docks, transit vehicles, and the areas between the two. The goal of this lesson is create awareness of these hazards and to provide knowledge to the learner on how to avoid accidents and/or injury.

Workers loading and unloading materials should be instructed in safe procedures appropriate to the material they handle. Truck or rail tank car loading or the unloading of flammable/combustible liquids is one of the most hazardous operations likely to be undertaken at any manufacturing or storage facility. Workers engaged in the loading or unloading of suspension-type highway trailers may be at an increased risk of injury due to the inability of damaged trailers to support the weight of the powered industrial truck used to load or unload the trailer. Throughout the trucking industry, Powered Industrial Trucks, 29 CFR 1910.178, is the most commonly cited standard. Many fatalities occur when a worker is crushed by a forklift that has overturned or fallen from a loading dock.

OSHA has jurisdiction over off-highway loading and unloading, such as warehouses, plants, grain handling facilities, retail locations, marine terminals, wharves, piers, and shipyards. OSHA also has jurisdiction in airport terminals unless the FAA has negotiated an airport manual and safety plan with a carrier which has a provision that preempts OSHA's jurisdiction by Section 4(b)1 for that provision. In all locations, OSHA has jurisdiction over forklift operators and terminal employees who perform loading and unloading operations.

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