It's 2:55 in the afternoon. The day shift operator parks the reach truck at the end of aisle six, drops the forks, pulls the key and heads for the lunchroom to sign out. Five minutes later the afternoon operator climbs on, turns the key and gets straight into the pick list, because there's a trailer due at 3:30 and the dock is already backing up.
The truck was checked this morning. Someone ticked the sheet at 6 a.m. So it's fine, right?
Maybe. But that morning check was about that morning's truck. Since then it has done eight hours of work, been driven by someone else, and possibly bumped a rack upright or run over a broken pallet board. This post is about one habit: doing the forklift pre-use check every time the truck changes hands, not just once a day, and how to make that quick enough that people actually do it.
Why "it was checked this morning" isn't enough
With one operator per truck, a start-of-day check covers most of it. But in most distribution centres trucks are shared between shifts and operators, and the handover is where information gets lost:
- The day operator noticed the horn was getting weak around lunchtime but didn't think it was worth mentioning.
- A tyre picked up a chunk of shrink-wrap and pallet nail in the afternoon, and nobody has looked at it since.
- Someone adjusted the seat, and the seat belt is now tucked down the side where it doesn't get used.
None of these is dramatic on its own. Together, they're the reason a truck that was "fine at six" can be a problem at three.
What the check actually covers
Our Forklift Pre-use Inspection template has a single tick list, labelled Checks (tick if OK). At a handover, here's what we'd focus on for each item.
Forks / carriage condition. Look for bent tips, cracks at the heel, and anything caught in the carriage.
Tyres / wheels. Walk round the truck. Look for debris in the tread, chunks missing, and stretch wrap round an axle.
Brakes & parking brake. A slow roll forward and a firm stop before you head into the aisle. Then make sure the parking brake actually holds.
Lights & beacon. Particularly worth checking on afternoon and night shifts, when the lighting at the back of the building or out on the dock isn't as good as it is mid-morning.
Horn / reverse alarm. Press the horn, put it in reverse and listen. In a busy pick area, these are how pedestrians know you're there.
Hydraulics / mast / chains. Raise and lower the forks, tilt forward and back, and watch the chains for slack or uneven movement.
Seat belt / restraint. Buckle it. If the last operator shoved it down the side of the seat, this is when you find out whether it still latches.
No fluid leaks. Look at the floor where the truck has been parked. A small fresh patch under a truck that has been sitting for twenty minutes tells you more than anything you'll see at 6 a.m.
Fire extinguisher (if fitted). Still there, still clipped in, pin intact.
Then comes the question that matters: Safe to use? The options are Yes, or No — tag out of service. If something on the list isn't right, the answer is no, the truck gets tagged, and the shift lead finds another one.
Making it quick enough to actually happen
Handover checks get skipped because of time. If it means finding the clipboard and a pen that works, people will skip it when the pressure's on. The goal is a couple of minutes on the phone already in the operator's pocket. A few things help:
- Put the fill link on the truck. A QR code on the overhead guard or next to the data plate, pointing at the fill link, means nobody has to go looking. Some sites make one link per truck and label each code with the unit number.
- Fill it before the key turns, not after the first pallet. Agree it at the shift briefing, so nobody feels they're slowing the team down.
- Keep the outgoing operator in the loop. A ten-second "anything I should know about?" at the handover catches the weak-horn kind of problem that never makes it onto paper.
On the phone, the form asks for:
- Date and Time, so each check is tied to a specific handover rather than just "Tuesday".
- Forklift / unit ID. Use whatever's painted on the truck, like "RT-04" or "Counterbalance 2".
- Operator name, meaning the person about to drive it.
- Hour meter reading. It's optional, but worth filling. More on that below.
- The tick list above.
- Safe to use?
- Defects / notes, for anything worth flagging: "horn quieter than usual", "nail pulled out of left drive tyre, looks OK", "seat belt slow to retract".
- Operator signature, done with a finger on the screen.
The required fields mean nobody can send a check with the important parts missing. Operators who only fill the form don't need an account; they just need the link. If you want a picture of a damaged fork or a leak, you can add a photo field to the template in the builder before you share it.
Why the hour meter reading is worth the extra five seconds
The hour meter field looks like admin, but at a handover it does something useful. Two checks on the same truck on the same day, with hour readings a full shift apart, tell you exactly how much work happened between them.
If the afternoon operator finds a damaged fork and the morning check was clean, the readings show the damage happened somewhere in that stretch of use. The conversation starts with facts rather than "it was like that when I got it".
What the record does for you afterwards
Every submission lands in Reports, so a shift lead or warehouse manager can see which trucks were checked at each handover, which ones were tagged out, and what the notes said.
The notes are where the patterns show up. If the same truck keeps getting "horn weak" or "slight leak under mast" written against it across different operators, that's a maintenance job, not a one-off. If one truck rarely gets a second check in the day, that's a handover habit worth raising at the next briefing.
When a client, auditor or your own management asks how you look after your fleet, you can export the checks from Reports as PDF or CSV and show which truck was checked, when, by whom and what they found.
You'll find related templates on the Warehousing page, including the Warehouse Safety Walk and the Near Miss Report, which pick up the things a forklift check can't, like a damaged rack upright or a close call at a blind corner.
If you'd like to try it, start a free trial, load the Forklift Pre-use Inspection from Templates in the builder, and stick a fill link on one shared truck for a week. See what the handover checks turn up.