Forklift Warning Systems: How the Linde BlueSpot™ Improves Forklift Safety

Forklifts and pedestrians share the same floor in most New Zealand warehouses, cool stores and yards. WorkSafe NZ wants forklifts and pedestrians kept apart and good site layout does most of that job, however there is nearly always a blind corner or a doorway where the two still meet. Linde’s BlueSpot is made for those places, projecting a bright blue light onto the floor ahead of the truck so people can see a forklift coming before it reaches them.

Why forklift blind spots are a hazard

Visibility from a loaded forklift is poor. The mast, the chains and the load itself sit right in the operator’s line of sight, which is why operators travel in reverse when a load blocks the view forward. That fixes the problem in front but creates a new one behind. Add in the noise of a working warehouse and a truck can be neither seen nor heard, which is how a pedestrian and a forklift can end up in the same place without either one noticing the other.

Forklift warning systems and the hierarchy of controls

Keeping forklifts and pedestrians physically apart is the strongest control WorkSafe NZ recognises - separate routes, barriers and marked walkways are the first priority. Warning and detection systems come after that, and their job is to cut the risk left over on the parts of a site where trucks and people still have to share space.

Most sites already run a reversing beeper and in a quiet warehouse reverse beepers do the job. The problem starts when the site gets noisy, because loud noise masks warning sounds and once several trucks are working at once the beeping becomes part of the background. Even someone who does hear it only knows that a truck is reversing somewhere nearby, not which truck or which way it is going. A light on the floor tells them both and WorkSafe NZ lists projected floor lights among the technological safety controls that help drivers avoid incidents. It also says businesses should consider whether it is reasonably practicable to retrofit new safety technology to the vehicles they already run.

How the Linde BlueSpot works

Linde’s BlueSpot warning system works by having two LED lights sit on the operator’s overhead guard. These lights throw a blue spot onto the floor several metres ahead of the truck, in whichever direction it is travelling, so the system works the same going forward or in reverse. The lights are bright without dazzling and can shine steadily or flash for extra attention at doorways, aisle crossings and blind corners.

The warning lands on the floor before the truck does, which gives people time to move. A directional version projects a blue arrow rather than a spot, showing which way the truck is heading at crossings with poor sight lines. RedSpot does the same job in red, for sites where blue is already used for other markings or where red shows up better on the floor.

The system is rated IP67, so it handles the dust, water and pressure washing of a food plant or a cool store. The LEDs stand up to shock and vibration and the whole system fits to counterbalance forklifts, reach trucks and narrow aisle trucks already in your fleet with no extra infrastructure

The clip below shows it on a real site. A forklift reverses out of a warehouse row at a blind corner where nobody would see it coming and the BlueSpot lands on the pedestrian walkway behind it. The person walking down that walkway sees the light and stops well before the truck gets there.