I’m a newbie. Going into all this I knew very little about forklifts, forklifts accessories and couldn’t tell a battery-operated lift from an LP truck.
My minimal forklift experience was watching it move giant loads of amplifiers and staging equipment in my days as a stagehand on giant rock concerts and theater productions. My takeaway from those days- the drivers sat on the lift until they were needed, then they moved into action. To this day I’m not sure if every operation works that way or if forklift operators are expected to do other things, but on a concert load-in or out, everyone has a specific task and they stick to that job.
So, taking the forklift operator’s class through Atlantic Forklift Services is a leap.
The first part of the lessons are online, and it’s laid out pretty well- it’s easy to find your way through. There is a narrator who takes you through the course and plenty of visuals to follow along with.
The initial two sections of the course are Fundamentals: Parts and Safety. Much of it, frankly, is common sense. I breezed through the first part and confidently answered the first sample quiz question. Naturally, I got it wrong. The lesson here is don’t get too cavalier about it. Pay attention and take your time. It’s not a race and it’s important information.
The “parts” section is pretty basic- it doesn’t get into the individual engine parts, really just the bigger sections of the forklift. You don’t need to know a lot of hardcore mechanics.
The “safety” section outlines the features of the forklift that are there to prevent you and others from getting hurt. Again, mostly common sense, and if you have spent any time around an operating forklift you’ve seen everything in this section in action. Motivated by my initial failure, I nailed the sample test question and moved on to the overall quiz.
There are five questions and you can only miss one. I went five for five and got the green light to move on to the next section. I completed the first section and the quiz in 21 minutes.
You do have a limited amount of time to complete the entire course, and according to the little green “progress” line I am now 17% through the online portion.
If you have a desire to learn to drive a forklift, contact us. Our experts can get you started in no time at all.
Next time: Learning about The Stability Triangle and capacities.
*Written by our contributor from his first-hand experience of training to be a forklift operator*