Boom Lift Accident Prevention

Results from the IPAF accident database for the year so far show that there were 25 accidents worldwide, resulting in 26 deaths from work carried out on mobile elevating work platforms (MEWPs) such as cherry pickers, scissor lifts and boom lifts.

In the last quarter, there were six accidents, resulting in seven deaths – all of which involved boom lifts. The causes stated for these accidents included overturning, falling, entrapment and electrocution. A total of 15 fatal accidents reported for the whole year have also involved booms, which may show the beginning of a particularly raised health and safety risk when using this type of aerial work platform.

Although every accident is a tragedy, so far numbers of fatal accidents are relatively low considering there are 1.5 million aerial platforms in use worldwide. “Powered access is still a very safe way to work at height,” stated Tim Whiteman, CEO at IPAF, in response to the database’s information.
So why might boom lifts be comparatively more dangerous than other work platforms, such as scissor lifts or personnel lifts? Well there could be several obvious reasons, for example the fact that booms often provide a much higher working height, and with additional height comes additional danger. Another reason may be that boom lifts are more commonly used by powered access operators, skewing statistics to create a higher number of accidents using this type of work platform. Booms and cherry pickers are indeed the most versatile type of aerial work platform, so therefore are likely to be used in a wider range of applications than other machines. Boom lifts also offer a different range of movement than scissor lifts, which may account for a potentially increased danger in their use.

Whichever type of MEWP you use, ensure that you have the right training and safety equipment to use it, and conduct a thorough risk assessment to keep yourself and your staff safe.