Why is maintenance the forgotten risk?
Most lift truck incidents that make the news are about driving: speed, visibility, pedestrians, loads. Maintenance rarely gets a headline because it does not cause a single dramatic event. It causes a brake that is a little less sharp each month, a chain that has stretched a few millimetres past its limit, a hose that weeps until it bursts. Each is invisible on a busy site until it is not.
That is what makes it dangerous. A driving fault is one operator on one day. A maintenance fault is on the truck every shift, for every operator, until someone finds it.
What does the law say?
The Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998 require every lift truck to be maintained in an efficient state, in efficient working order and in good repair, and any maintenance log to be kept up to date. The Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations 1998 require a thorough examination of the lifting parts by a competent person, at least every twelve months, or every six months where the truck lifts people, with a written report each time.
Breaches are criminal offences under the Health and Safety at Work Act. The HSE can serve improvement and prohibition notices on the spot, and prosecutions following an injury regularly end in fines running to six figures for the company, with directors personally liable where a failure is traced to them. The defence that the truck was working fine is not a defence.
How does missed maintenance spread through an operation?
One truck off the road is never one truck. The loading bay slows, so lorries wait, so the yard fills, so the next shift starts behind. A hire truck arrives a day later and the operators need familiarising on it. The engineer who could have done a two-hour service at a quiet time is now doing a two-day repair at a busy one, and the part he needs is on order because nobody knew the truck was failing. Every one of those costs has a line in the accounts; none of them has the word maintenance next to it.
What fails first when maintenance is missed?
- Brakes: pads and shoes wear, fluid degrades, and stopping distance grows a little at a time.
- Lift chains: they stretch with use, and a chain past its wear limit can part under load.
- Hydraulics: seals harden, hoses chafe, and a leak becomes a burst on the wrong lift.
- Tyres: cushion tyres chunk and wear past the line, which affects stability and braking.
- Steering: worn joints and low fluid make the truck vague, then unpredictable.
- Electrics and batteries on electric trucks: corroded connectors, tired cells, faulty chargers.
- Safety devices: horns, lights, seat switches and seat belts that nobody has tested for months.
What are the warning signs?
The daily pre-use check is the first line of defence, and it exists to catch these before a shift starts: unusual noises, fluid on the floor, a mast that drifts or jerks, a brake pedal that has changed, steering that feels different, warning lights, and tyre damage. An operator who reports a fault needs to be listened to and the truck taken out of use, not told to finish the day.
Why do maintenance records matter?
Because they are the evidence. LOLER thorough examination reports must be kept for at least two years, and until the next report at minimum; PUWER expects a maintenance log to be current. An inspector arriving after an incident will ask for the service history, the examination reports and the pre-use check sheets before anything else. A fleet with complete records has a story to tell; a fleet without them has already lost the argument.
Records also make maintenance cheaper. A truck with a known history gets the right parts ordered before the visit, its wear trends spotted early, and a resale or end-of-hire inspection with nothing to argue about.
How do you stop maintenance being your weakest link?
- Put every truck on a written service schedule based on hours and environment, not on when someone remembers.
- Diarise the LOLER thorough examination dates separately, and treat an overdue examination as a truck off the road.
- Make the daily pre-use check real: a sheet, a signature, and a route for reporting faults that ends with the truck being fixed.
- Use one provider for servicing, repairs and thorough examinations so nothing falls between two contracts.
- Keep the records together, where the person who meets the inspector can find them.
BJB's service department maintains over 750 fleets on all makes, with mobile engineers, a Grimsby workshop, 24-hour breakdown cover and LOLER examinations carried out alongside servicing.