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Mobile Equipment and Vehicle Interaction Awareness

For anyone who works around forklifts, trucks, loaders or utes: how people are hit by mobile equipment, and the habits that keep pedestrians and machines apart.

  • SeriesToolbox Talks
  • AudienceWorkers on sites with forklifts, trucks, loaders or light vehicles
  • Duration20–30 minutes
  • CodeHAZ-MOB
  • Version1.0 · 875 KB ZIP

About this package

Being hit by a moving vehicle or piece of mobile plant is one of the most common causes of death at Australian workplaces. Heavy vehicles and equipment such as trucks, loaders and forklifts have large blind spots, and light vehicles move fast around people who expect them to stop.

This talk covers separating people from vehicles, blind spots, positive communication with operators, and the rules for both heavy and light vehicles on site. It suits pedestrians and operators alike. It is not a licence, operator training or spotter training for any machine.

Learning outcomes

After the session, participants will be able to:

  • Explain why vehicle and mobile plant interaction is one of the most common causes of workplace fatalities
  • Describe how separation works: exclusion zones, barriers, walkways, and keeping people and vehicles apart by design
  • Recognise the blind spots of heavy vehicles and mobile plant, and that an operator may not see a pedestrian
  • Use positive communication before approaching equipment: make eye contact, get a clear signal from the operator, and wait for it to stop
  • Apply the site rules for light vehicles, such as speed limits, parking, reversing, flags and lights
  • Explain why loads, reversing, slopes and fatigue increase the risk
  • Report near misses involving vehicles and people, every time

Training outline

MODULE 1

Why interaction kills

  • Common scenarios: reversing, loading, intersections
  • Heavy and light vehicles
  • Duties under WHS or OHS laws
MODULE 2

Separation

  • Exclusion zones and barriers
  • Walkways and crossing points
  • Loading and unloading areas
MODULE 3

Seeing and being seen

  • Blind spots
  • Positive communication with operators
  • High-visibility clothing, lights and flags
MODULE 4

Your part

  • Following the site traffic rules
  • Never approaching until the operator signals
  • Reporting near misses

What is in the package

Training

  • Editable PowerPoint presentation with speaker notes, plus PDF
  • Facilitator guide with a running sheet, discussion prompts and model answers
  • Participant handout with the key points to take away

Records and assessment

  • Attendance record form, to capture who attended, when, and who facilitated
  • Excel attendance register
  • Multiple-choice theory assessment, to record understanding if your business wants to
  • Answer key for the assessment
  • Certificate template

Start here

  • Read Me First guide
  • Product overview
  • Permitted use terms
  • Version information

Practical activities

  • Blind spot walk: with a parked vehicle or plan view, workers mark where an operator cannot see
  • Approach the machine: workers describe the steps they would take to approach a loader or forklift to speak to the operator

Delivery requirements

  • A facilitator such as a supervisor, leading hand or WHS adviser who has read the facilitator guide and knows your site's arrangements for the topic
  • A screen or projector, or printed slides or handouts: it works in a crib room, site office or on a video call
  • Your own site procedures for the topic, to point to during the session

File formats

  • PowerPoint (.pptx), editable, with speaker notes
  • Word (.docx), editable
  • Excel (.xlsx) attendance register
  • PDF copies of the slides, guide, handout and forms
  • Delivered as a single ZIP download

Questions about this package

Does this cover the forklift licence?

No. Operating a forklift and many other machines needs a high risk work licence or specific operator training. This talk is about people and vehicles working near each other.

Can we add our own site procedures and photos?

Yes. The slides, handout and guide are editable, and the facilitator guide marks the places to add your own procedures, contacts and photos of your workplace.

Do we have to use the assessment?

No. It is there if your business wants a record that each worker understood the key points. The attendance record on its own shows who attended and when.

Can we edit the documents?

Yes. Presentations, guides, workbooks and templates are supplied in editable formats so you can adapt them to your workplace. The copyright notice must stay.

Can we use the packages outside Australia?

Yes. The hazards and the controls in each toolbox talk apply in any workplace. The duties slide and the facilitator guide's "check before you deliver" table refer to Australian WHS and OHS laws, licences and standards, so a business elsewhere should swap those for its own country's rules. Everything is editable.

Do participants get a certificate?

Yes. The package includes an editable certificate template, an attendance record (Word, plus an Excel register) and an optional 10-question multiple-choice assessment with an answer key, so you can record who attended and, if you choose, that each worker understood the key points. It is a certificate of completion issued by your business, not a nationally recognised qualification.

Can we deliver it face to face and online?

Yes. The packages are designed for face-to-face sessions and work over a video meeting platform. The facilitator guide notes where an activity needs adjusting for online delivery.

Can we run it more than once?

Yes, as many times as you like, for your own organisation's workers.

What is your refund policy?

Your rights under the Australian Consumer Law are not affected. See the Refund Policy for how we handle a package that is faulty, not as described, or not what you ordered.

Do we get future updates?

You keep the version you bought for as long as you use it, and corrections to that version are made available to you. A new edition, for example following a significant change in the law, may be sold separately.

More answers on the home page, or contact us.

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