Government Safety RegulationsColumnsSafety & Health Best Practices Risk Management

Preventing falls from flatbed trucks

By J. Nigel Ellis, Ph.D., P.E., CSP, CPE

Flatbed fall protection is a hot subject for dozens of industries that ship their products the American way - by flatbed trucks.

Many industries have complied with the four-foot OSHA height rule but many have not.

This is because OSHA has not definitively regulated truck loading or tarping and is guided by the John Miles memo internally of tarping next to the building which uses fork lifts or overhead cranes to load.

Next the subject of employer and employee. Washington State and WISHA have endorsed all tarping work to be guided by the four-foot rule.

Here, shown is a method of tarping using netting which has been successfully implemented.

The rule is to hook the netting to the rubrail when standing or walking on the flatbed deck. The rule adopted in many cases is which employer is in the best position to provide protection. Definitely not the trucker or his employer -- so it rests with the premises owner to recognize a hazard on site affecting 5-200 flatbed shipments per day.

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J. Nigel Ellis is president of Ellis Fall Protection Solutions in Wilmington, DE.

Ph.D., P.E., CSP, CPE (Human Factors)

Specialties: Fall Protection Engineer, Human Factors Engineering and Ergonomics applied to Fall Hazards and Work Methods, Former Fall Equipment Manufacturer, Standards in Fall Protection, Fall Hazard Analysis, Fall Protection Forensic Specialist, Fall Accident Reconstruction, Fall Protection Systems, Methods to reduce fall hazards, Fall Hazard Elimination techniques, Fall Hazard Research, Fall Protection System Testing, Inventor and patent holder in fall protection, Expert in high work fall protection methods and reduction of risk through human factors analysis. Three Point Control and OSHA Alliance Design Solution for climbing using horizontal grab features. Anchor Point design and testing to meet 1910.27(b)(1)(i).