I was getting off to adust my forks and avoid dropping my skid. My boss told me, ‘Should be fine like that.’ I listened to him, lift the skid, and it IMMEDIATELY tipped over. Your boss isn’t driving. You are.

Uneven load shifted as I was about halfway out. Too afraid to try to shift the forks over to try and balance it as it was up about 8m up. The most experienced operator passed by 10 seconds later and said yeah hold up and pushed the load towards the center. After it was safely on the ground, he asked if I got scared. Told him I needed to check my pants. He laughed and said," good! You’ll always remember and it will never happen to you again."

Reverse parked it 2cm too far to the left causing a corner protector to scrape along the side with a very loud screech. Everyone looked because of the noise and I still feel bad to this day. To be fair the corner protector did the job, so in the end not a problem.

Was working with a guy taking turns driving one of those large, extendable forklifts.

We were lifting multi-ton concrete blocks into place on a makeshift wall being used for a large ice salt depot for front loaders.

I was standing up on the wall, helping the other guy guide the blocks onto each other. He set one of the blocks on the others and we both noticed that it was slightly uneven, the guide groves weren’t perfectly matching up, so the block was crooked.

No problem, he backed up a few feet, and then slowly and gently guided one of the forks against the crooked block, trying to push it on one side to straighten it out.

Neither of us noticed that the crooked block was wedged against one of the other blocks on the back side.

He keeps pressing with the fork, slowly pushing harder until, bang!! a sound like a gunshot goes off. I flinch and jump backwards, not sure what just happened. The other guy yells, “Get Down!! Cover your head!!”

I throw myself against the interior wall of the depot, grab onto my hardhat tightly and crunch down in a ball, glancing around trying to see what just happened.

A second or two later I hear a faint but heavy, “thud.” The pressure from the fork shoving that concrete block while it was wedged against the other blocks had caused a chunk of concrete about the size of a bowling ball to break off and explode into into the air, probably 80+ feet.

The thud was it hitting the ground about 50 feet away. It made a nice little crater in the dirt. Would have certainly killed me if it had come down right on my head. Definitely got some pucker factor from that one.

I was using the forks as a workbench to cut a piece of 1/2" steel with an acetylene torch. I thought I had enough overhang to make it work.

Those forks ended up about 1.5" shorter after I finished my cut.

Backed a forklift into an AC window unit of an office my first day on the job. I was fired by the end of the day and that’s the last time I ever drove a forklift.

I have my fork and telehandler licence but I’m closer to management than a driver, I just want to be able to hop on the move one out of the way and not look like an idiot when I ask my guys to do something with it.

So big emergency, we have to move a couple telehandlers out of where another team had buried them and get them on a truck asap. It’s tucked so tightly in a spot with its boom up and stuff everywhere around it. I’m not very familiar with it but I crab walk it out of its hole, around a bunch of other crap and finally out onto the street. I’m now comfortable and start rolling down the road at speed towards the truck when a guy I. A pickup passes me and just points up with one hand.

Slam on brakes. Look up

There’s a line (probably internet/phone) running across the road and my forks are above them. I back up… Lower the mast and forks… And drove it to the tech and got out of there

Thank you Angel Man. I would have looked a complete fool had I knocked out internet to our own buildings, and it could have been power lines!

I know you never drive with forks up, they were just up when I got in the vehicle and the 15 minutes of Tetris they had to stay up… Then I basically forgot.

Don’t do what Donny Don’t does!

I wasn’t watching where I was going and walked forehead first into the carpet boom of the forklift I had parked. Shouldn’t have parked it with the boom that high, and should have been watching where I was going. Not my proudest moment.

I was picking up a pallet of test seeds and driving them across the field with them in front of the forklift.

I didn’t check my load, hit a bump, and before I could break, ran over half the bags spilling it everywhere.

I am embarrassed to this day.

Once I forgot to drop my forks when I went to go into a truck, so I have the bay door 2 new ventilation holes.

Although I did come in one morning to see the mezzanine drooping dramatically on one side, apparently somebody on 3rd shift ROYALY fucked up. Lucky it wasn’t structurally compromised to the point where it couldn’t be fixed. He, uh, that guy got fired.

Not me but a coworker. Worked for a food importer and distributor back in the early 90’s and had never heard of needing any kind of certification to operate a forklift. Coworker who gave me a ride and got me stoned on the way to work every morning has a minor accident while on the tow motor. He is embarrassed and panics. Rather than stopping and taking a deep breath he tries to straighten out the error before the boss finds out and ends up puncturing the drywall above the office with the forks. It was 35 years ago, I still remember thinking how easily those forks could go through me

Moving pallets of copier paper. Sometimes I’d miss the pallet and spear a box with a forklift tine. Those ended up being sold byloose reams minus the mangled ream.

You should try the quarter trick. Lay a quarter on the ground, tilt the forks forward, back up dragging the tip of the fork across the quarter and the quarter will flip up and land on the same fork. It’s odd but it works.

Breaking traction when driving through a puddle.

I assumed they are super heavy and would stick to the ground, nope.

The tyres are essentially treadless drift-tyres, and any water on a polished concrete surface will allow some sliding.

This was without load and no crash ensued, just a momentary boost in adrenaline as 1.5 tons is moving a different direction as expected.

Example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_z-QjthkWg

Forked a lift