Forklift injury rates highest in Mississippi, Georgia and Alabama

A new analysis of 5,618 OSHA severe injury reports from 2015 to 2025 finds the highest forklift injury rates in Mississippi, Georgia and Alabama, while Texas led in raw counts. The report highlights that workers on foot were the most common victims, underscoring ongoing risks around pedestrian safety and operator training.

Why it matters: - Forklift incidents are causing amputations, hospitalizations and eye losses serious enough to trigger OSHA reporting. - The analysis found forklift injuries made up 5.3% of all severe injury reports, or about 10 a week. - The findings point to a recurring safety problem for workers who are walking near forklifts, not just those operating them.

What happened: - US Forklift Certification released a state-by-state analysis of forklift accidents based on 5,618 forklift-related severe injury reports filed with OSHA between January 2015 and November 2025. - The report ranks the 29 states and Washington, D.C., where federal OSHA oversees private employers. - The 21 states with their own OSHA-approved State Plans are not included in OSHA’s federal Severe Injury Reports. - Texas had the most forklift severe injury reports by raw count from 2015 to 2024, with 893. - Florida followed with 505 reports, then Georgia with 468, Ohio with 464 and Pennsylvania with 452.

The details: - When adjusted for workforce size, Mississippi had the highest rate at 1.24 reports per 100,000 private-sector workers per year. - Georgia ranked second at 1.22, and Alabama ranked third at 1.21. - Texas ranked eighth at 0.84, below the national average of 0.70 across covered states. - The most common accident type was a forklift striking a worker on foot, which accounted for 26.8% of reports. - The second-most common incident involved a worker caught in or between a forklift and another object, at 23.9%. - Amputations accounted for 17.7% of forklift severe injury reports. - The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics counted 84 forklift-related worker deaths in 2024, up from 67 in 2023. - Injury rates in the report were calculated using private-sector employment data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages. - The full report includes state rankings, charts, injury types by industry and a downloadable data file. - Journalists and publishers may use the charts and data with credit and a link to US Forklift Certification. - The report is available here.

Between the lines: - The highest rates are concentrated in the Southeast, even though Texas leads on raw volume. - The pattern suggests many severe forklift injuries happen in mixed work areas where pedestrians and powered equipment share space. - Norm Lanier, owner of US Forklift Certification, said proper operator training and pedestrian rules could prevent many of the injuries.

What's next: - Employers in high-rate states may use the rankings to target operator training, traffic separation and pedestrian safety controls. - The dataset and charts give safety teams a way to compare their own forklift injury patterns against national and state trends. - US Forklift Certification’s training programs may gain attention from employers looking to reduce reportable incidents and fatalities.