Recently, Notiziario Sicurezza in Italy published a special article titled "Schiacciati dal silenzio: la strain inviscibile dei carrelli elevating" (translated as "crushed by silence: hidden 'injuries' of forklifts in Italian workplaces"), which systematically examines the risks of death and serious injury caused by forklifts in Italian workplaces based on multiple recent accidents. The article points out that typical cases in 2025 show that the age of victims is mainly concentrated between 38-66 years old, with an average of about 52-55 years old; Most accidents occur in narrow sections of mixed lanes, loading and unloading platforms, and warehouses. Common causes include insufficient training, temporary path occupation, obstructed vision, blind spots for reversing, and inadequate speed management. Call on the industry and regulatory authorities to use data transparency, hard training constraints, and technological transformation to curb 'invisible casualties'.
According to public statistics, the overall level of occupational injuries in Italy has not significantly decreased in recent years. The conclusion drawn by INAIL (Italian Work Injury Insurance Agency) for the annual report and semi annual data of 2024 is that the overall number of injury declarations remains stable or fluctuates slightly, and although fatal accidents have shown periodic fluctuations, they are still at a high level; The number of reports from groups such as "students/apprentices" has also increased, indicating that weak links in training and supervision are still present. For the subcategory of "forklift related accidents", INAIL's case library and industry secondary research over the years also suggest that most of the injured are formal employees with more than 3 years of job experience, indicating that "habitual risk", "simplified procedures", and regulatory fatigue are more representative than "lack of experience".
The report will focus on the details of the scene that are "preventable and controllable": firstly, pedestrian vehicle mixed traffic and temporary obstacles overlapping, causing blind spots and injuries when turning right/reversing; Secondly, during platform docking and high cargo space operations, drivers skip actions such as "complete stop confirmation" and "turning around to observe" in order to catch up with the pace; Thirdly, during shift handover and outsourcing operations, visitors or new personnel may not be familiar with the channel rules, resulting in 'unexpected crossing'. The author describes the structural problems behind the accident as "crushed by silence": scattered events, sensitive topics, and complex accountability chains have prevented many near miss incidents and minor injuries from being institutionalized for improvement.
In terms of prevention suggestions, the article has proposed a consistent path with multiple safety research channels: firstly, hard constraints on training and qualifications - setting periodic training and scenario based drills for drivers, ground pedestrians, and team leaders respectively; The second is layout and organizational optimization - fixing sidewalks and buffer zones, adding speed limit/yield prompts at the outer edge of channel turns, and setting standard action cards for "entering confirmation dropping fork resetting leaving position" in the loading and unloading area; The third is technological integration - using automatic speed limit for turning, pedestrian warning, blue/red spotlights and other driving assistance at the forklift end, and introducing electronic fences and event recording for dangerous areas in the warehouse. These practices are mutually confirmed with INAIL's technical data on "Forklift Accident Mechanism and Protection Points".
It is worth reiterating that forklift accidents are not just a "driver's problem". According to industry analysis, over half of the injury incidents are related to site organization, path design, work pace, and contracting division, such as temporary occupation of outsourcing channels during peak picking hours, reverse driving caused by emergency replenishment, and intrusion of stacking cargo space into turning radius. The dynamic data review released by INAIL in 2025 also suggests that without stricter process control (including contractor coordination and external work permits), the accident curve is difficult to significantly decline.
From the perspective of industry implementation, the "three-step method" proposed by the topic is executable: the first step is to use near loss events and minor injury cases for "visual analysis" to transform implicit risks into a map that the team can understand; The second step is to redesign the site and process based on noise reduction (reducing conflict points, reducing blind spots, and stabilizing the pace), followed by setting speed limits and giving way to other on-site regulations; Step three, overlay the driving assistance and pedestrian warning systems according to risk zones, and conduct a closed-loop review with KPI dashboards and event replays. Instead of being swept up by "scattered accidents", it is better to incorporate "hidden injuries" into institutionalized governance and use data and engineering methods to "rivet" risks on site.
Taking August 29, 2025 as the timeline, this report sends a clear signal in occupational safety discussions in Italy: forklift accidents are not "occasional individual negligence," but rather a tripartite mirror of organization, training, and technology. Only by incorporating the "invisible" near misses and minor mistakes into statistics and reviews can death and serious injuries truly move down the curve. For European warehouse and manufacturing companies experiencing labor shortages and multi shift pressures, this is both a safety and operational red line.
