There is no such thing as a forklift license in California. There is a certification, and the employer issues it. That single misunderstanding is behind most of the forklift citations I see, because an employer who believes a card from a vendor discharged the duty has not read 8 CCR section 3668.
Who is allowed to drive
Section 3650(t)(1) is the gate: “Only drivers authorized by the employer and trained in the safe operations of industrial trucks or industrial tow tractors pursuant to Section 3668 shall be permitted to operate such vehicles.” Authorization and training are two separate things, and the employer owes both. A temporary worker who drove a forklift at the last job is not authorized here until this employer says so in writing.
What the training has to cover
Section 3668(c) splits the curriculum in two, and employers routinely deliver only the first half.
Truck-related topics: the operating instructions and warnings for the specific truck, the controls and instrumentation, engine or motor operation, steering and maneuvering, visibility, fork and attachment operation and limitations, capacity, stability, the inspection the operator performs, refueling or battery charging, and any operating limitation.
Workplace-related topics: surface conditions where the truck runs, the composition of the loads actually handled and their stability, load manipulation and stacking, pedestrian traffic, narrow aisles and other restricted spaces, hazardous locations, ramps and sloped surfaces, ventilation and exhaust in enclosed areas, and any unique condition on that site.
A generic online course cannot deliver the second half. It has never seen the dock, the ramp, or the aisle. It can be a legitimate component of the training, but it cannot be the whole of it, and the record has to show the site-specific part happened.
The evaluation, and the three-year clock
Training is not finished when the classroom ends. Section 3668(d)(2) requires that “an evaluation of each powered industrial truck operator’s performance shall be conducted at least once every three years.” Someone competent watches the operator drive, on this site, and records what they saw. That evaluation is the part most often missing from a file that otherwise looks complete.
What restarts the clock early
Refresher training is owed before the three years are up when any of the following happens under section 3668(d)(1):
- The operator has been observed operating the truck in an unsafe manner
- The operator has been involved in an accident or a near-miss
- An evaluation shows the operator is not operating the truck safely
- The operator is assigned a different type of truck
- A condition in the workplace changes in a way that could affect safe operation
Read that list as an inspector will. A near-miss that generated an incident report and no retraining record is a citation that writes itself.
The truck itself
Section 3650(t)(7) puts the pre-shift check on the driver: the vehicle is checked at the beginning of each shift, and if it is found to be unsafe the matter is reported immediately and the truck stays out of service until it has been made safe. Section 3650(b)(4) requires nameplates and capacity markings to be kept legible, which matters because capacity is the number an operator is supposed to be working against. Under section 3650(e), major modifications and structural changes affecting capacity or safe handling need the manufacturer’s prior written approval, unless the modification is designed, manufactured and installed in accordance with recognized good engineering and manufacturing principles. The welded-on fork extension nobody can account for is a finding every time.
The file that answers the question
For each operator: the date of initial training, the topics covered, the name of the trainer, the name of the evaluator, the date of the performance evaluation, the truck types the operator is authorized on, and any refresher with the event that triggered it. Seven lines per driver. That file takes an afternoon to build and settles the question in about ninety seconds when someone asks.
Michael Karl McNeil — environmental health and safety, industrial hygiene, Cal/OSHA citation defense.
Michael Karl McNeil 