Forklift Traffic Management in Victoria: What WorkSafe Expects on Your Floor

Why this matters more than the machine you choose

The numbers WorkSafe Victoria published alongside its May 2024 guidance are the reason this guide exists: on average more than one Victorian worker a week is seriously injured after being struck by a forklift or a falling forklift load; eight people were killed in forklift-related workplace incidents between 2019 and May 2024, three of them pedestrians working near forklifts; and pedestrians accounted for 65 of the 157 accepted forklift-injury claims in the preceding year. Courts imposed or accepted fines and undertakings totalling more than $2.4 million across 16 WorkSafe forklift prosecutions in the 12 months before the release (WorkSafe Victoria, 22 May 2024).

The common thread is people and forklifts sharing the same space. That is a site design problem, and it is the employer's to solve regardless of who owns or hires the forklift.

The hierarchy WorkSafe applies

WorkSafe's forklift safety alert sets out the order of controls it expects employers to work through: eliminate the forklift or replace it with other load-shifting equipment where reasonably practicable; if not, use engineering and administrative controls — chiefly a traffic management plan — to reduce the risk; and review the controls regularly, especially after an incident or a change in work practices (WorkSafe Victoria safety alert, 21 October 2021).

In practice, for most warehouses that means three layers:

1. Physical separation — barriers, fences, inward-opening gates at pedestrian crossings, dedicated safety zones for truck drivers.
2. Exclusion zones — defined distances where barriers are not practicable.
3. Behaviour and technology — speed limiting, signage, halos, seatbelt interlocks, proximity detection.

The three-metre rule, and how it grows

The alert gives a specific minimum. Where fixed barriers are not reasonably practicable, pedestrians should stay outside an exclusion zone of at least three metres from a forklift travelling at walking pace with its load at axle height, and must not interact with the load while the forklift is operating.

When the load is raised, the zone grows: add three metres to the combined height of the mast and load. WorkSafe's own example: a mast and load measuring four metres needs a minimum seven-metre exclusion zone. The alert also lists the factors a site should weigh when setting its own distances — how often forklifts and people interact, braking distance, stability, the environment, load height and type, attachments, and blind spots.

That has a direct consequence for racking and container work. A truck placing a pallet at 4.8 m with a full-free-lift mast needs a bigger pedestrian-free envelope than one shuttling at axle height, and the aisle layout has to allow for it. We raise this in every fit assessment because it changes which model and mast make sense — see our new warehouse checklist.

What a traffic management plan should contain

WorkSafe calls the traffic management plan (TMP) the core administrative control. The alert says it should be developed in consultation with employees and health and safety representatives, documented for each individual workplace, and communicated to everyone on site including visitors. The controls it lists for a TMP:

• Pedestrian and forklift exclusion zones, including safety zones for truck drivers during loading and unloading.
• Fixed safety barriers, containment fences and inward-opening gates at pedestrian crossings.
• Clearly marked aisles, travel paths and crossings.
• Reduced-speed limiting devices.
• Halos (projected warning lights) and signage.

A good TMP also covers the things the alert's incident descriptions point to: sloping driveways (one fatality involved a forklift tipping on a slope and crushing a nearby worker), unstable or awkward loads falling from the forks, doorways and blind corners, and the area behind palletised goods where people walk unseen.

The 2024 guidance and inspection program

In May 2024 WorkSafe published a Forklift safety guidebook with practical advice on using and maintaining forklifts, with a focus on separating forklifts from pedestrians. Alongside the barriers, exclusion zones and signage above, it specifically encouraged two retrofits:

• Sequential seatbelt interlocks — devices that stop the forklift starting unless the seatbelt is fastened.
• Proximity devices — sensors that detect pedestrians and automatically reduce mobile plant to low speed.

A statewide inspection program started the same week, focused on manufacturing, postal and warehousing — the sectors where most forklift deaths and injuries occur. If an inspector visits, the first questions are usually whether there is a documented TMP, whether it was written with workers, and whether the separation it describes actually exists on the floor.

How the forklift itself helps — and where it cannot

Modern lithium counterbalance trucks arrive with some of this built in: operator presence systems, LED work and warning lights, speed-limiting settings, blue-spot or halo projectors, and fleet management modules that log who drove and when. Our hire fleet is delivered with those features configured, with load charts and pre-start checklists supplied, and we can specify blue-spot lights, speed limits and seatbelt interlocks for your site in the quote.

What no forklift can do is fix a layout. If people and trucks share an aisle with no barrier and no exclusion zone, the technology only shortens the stopping distance. Separation comes first; the machine's features come second.

A practical starting checklist

• Map every point where people and forklifts meet: docks, doorways, aisle ends, pick faces, charging bays, lunchroom paths.
• Decide for each point: barrier, exclusion zone, or redesign the route.
• Mark aisles, crossings and exclusion zones on the floor; put the raised-load rule on the sign.
• Set the speed limit on the machine and the site, and record it in the TMP.
• Write the TMP with your workers and HSRs, date it, and brief visitors and drivers.
• Review after any incident, near miss or layout change.

Operators also need a High Risk Work Licence (LF class) — see our Victorian forklift licence guide — and a daily pre-start routine, covered in the pre-start checklist guide.

Sources and review dates

• New guidance, inspections target forklift safety — WorkSafe Victoria, 22 May 2024. Checked 20 October 2026. Injury statistics, prosecutions total, guidebook, interlocks, proximity devices and the inspection program.
• Safety alert: workers fatally injured by forklifts — WorkSafe Victoria, 21 October 2021. Checked 20 October 2026. Exclusion-zone distances, control hierarchy and TMP contents.

This guide summarises WorkSafe Victoria material for planning purposes. It is not legal advice and does not replace the guidebook, the Occupational Health and Safety Act 2004 (Vic) or advice specific to your site.