Moving heavy freight with pallet truck

the only thing running through my head is eating layers of chocalate there would be no problem movin that skid around but fitting me through the door yeah not good

 

All my companies trailers are spring ride

 

At the end of the day the bottom line is: The employer is responsible for Your Health and Safety.
WSIB (workers compensation) and the government are fed up paying injury claims and are holding employers accountable.
We are not in the dark ages anymore. If you get injured, the employers insurance premiums go up for 7 years.
The more injuries a company has = higher premiums.
I also have to unload at some places with no docks and do all the things previously mentioned. Park on a slight uphill, drop the air bags, get another customer to move the skids to the tail etc. I have to use the customer supplied pallet jack, some are ok some are junk. When I have a heavy skid, the customer either helps or I take it back to the warehouse. Never had a problem yet.
I also asked for electric pallet jacks and got nowhere.
I even suggested that our Know it all warehouse manager load the truck by himself using a manual jack.
Ha Ha like thats gonna happen.

If you want to learn more about Worker Health and Safety Awareness in 4 Steps, you can take the free online test.
http://www.labour.gov.on.ca/english/hs/training/index.php

In Ontario, Canada. This course is mandatory for everyone. The USA has similar laws.

 

Yeh, thread is dormant for a month, but any info to prevent an inury is worth it.

The straight trucks that my company ran all had liftgates, usually the 3,500 lbs rated versions to handle a pallet with 4x55g drums of dialysis solution (550lb ea). They had a hinged plate on the edge that you could chain up to give you a little barrier to keep from running off the edge. Other heavy clients were a company that does outdoor athletic fields and gym floors, some steel blanks suppliers, 2 medical suppliers (exam tables for docs office, bags of salt, powdered mix, boxes of solution) and towards the end a tile and flooring place. We originally only had hand pallet jacks. I am told that after I left they decided to equip all the trucks, both the 26K C and the B trucks, with eJacks. When I left they only recently bought 3 eJacks that were dedicated for the tile shop place (but I never managed to get one) and after some experience they also mandated to that client no single skid could be over 2K. There was only one other company owned eJack and one other driver had picked up a used one for relatively cheap. For the big stuff I played a lot of games parking the truck somewhere so it was level or slightly tilted in my favor and would stage, then secure the cargo near the back. The trucks were rated for forklifts, but some companies wouldn't drive them onto the truck. They would sometimes pick them off that back edge position, or use a class 2/3 riding/standup type instead. If you've done it, you know it takes almost no incline to make the one 3K skid of bricks I moved once, near impossible to work with and more importantly, move in a safe, controlled manner. Surely OSHA has got to have some standard for this. I was about 6' 5" / 225 and while I had the leg power to move some of that stuff, the mass ratio was such that it's not really controllable. I would usually do better pushing, but if it had to go out the end, usually had to pull it so you're leading with the big wheels and maybe on a diagonal across the dock plate lip, as well. Above a certain weight is more than your lower back should be subject to by a load acting through your shoulders on a big lever called your torso. So if you are ever in a situation like going up the incline through a narrow door into a hospital, make sure your back is lined up parallel to the jack handle (and the floor) when you place a foot on the each side of the door jamb and attempt to pull it over the threshold and inside late on a Christmas Eve when there isn't anyone around to help. Yep, had to break it down, both for the weight and because they had ignored the special instructions and incorrectly loaded it too wide for the doorway at that location.

Kilroy, besides avoiding the situation or knowing you can get some assistance, I wonder if doing a little warm up and stretching before moving the stuff would help a little.

Big Don, steel toe saved my foot once. Actually, I ended up with some size 15 composite toe shoes. Same price, same protection and are suppossed to be for electricians, but the added bounus for me was I could walk through the detectors at airport or court security and not set them off.

 

I'm a newish driver but I'll add my two cents, I've been doing P&D LTL for 8 months here's my take and tips(those not already mentioned anyway)

Sweep the floor, every little thing on the floor might as well be a mountain when trying to move a 3000lb pallet, sweep the floor whenever you get a chance, preferably before anything is loaded. Personally even though I rarely get the same equipment two days in a row I almost always sweep out at the end of the day if just to make the next guys job easier and hope/promote that he do the same for me.

Zig Zag, Pulling the pallet to the side is much easier then straight up hill. If you Zig Zag the main wheel of the pallet jack it will climb up the hill like this /\/\/\/\/\/ with less brute strength and thus less risk of injury.

I'm paid by the hour, if the company won't provide good equipment and task me with these deliveries then if I have to take an hour breaking down a pallet to do it safely, then that's what I'm going to do. It's that or bring it back, I've yet to be told to bring it back vs. take the time, and I've yet to bring anything back cause I couldn't find a way to get it off the truck.

If using a tractor with an air dump use it, dumping the air in the tractor to get the nose of the trailer lower is often as easy as a flip of the switch. In theory I think this is possible on an air ride trailer by dumping the air tanks manually, haven't done it yet though. Or if the nose is low use the landing gear, cranking it down can lift the nose a bit. One instance I was both picking up and delivering 12 3000lb pallets of sand bags. Both the pickup and drop locations had a forklift but no dock so only could move in on and off the tail. So when loading I dumped the air in the tractor to make the move forward a slight downhill, at the drop I cranked down the landing gear to make it in that instance close to level.

2x4s, often a pallet jack can't get the pallet high enough off the ground to clear the lip at the end of the lift gate. In those cases I'll sometimes pull it from the nose, drop it, then slide a couple 2x4s between the pallet jack and pallet. Then when lifted again it's another 1-1/2" off the ground and thus the lift gate.

 

If your in pretty good with one of your stops it never hurts to ask them to mobe some freight around on your truck. A few of my stops let me use their forklift and i take the extra 10 minutes and shuffle everything about... once i get into my area my stops are all no more then 5mi apart so i usually just resort heavy to the rear and on one side (obviously depends on how heavy lol) and light on the other side, but like i said being so close to my stops i can get away with loading my truck like a #######.

 

Korben is dead on also with dumping air... works great in a bind, but sometimes you just cant move the freight and your stuck with a bringback party.