Mobile Elevating Work Platforms: Safe Use and Requirements

Mobile elevating work platforms, or MEWP's, are critical components of most maintenance and construction operations. When a worker must perform a task above ground, a platform, such as a scissor lift or boom lift is often utilized to complete the job in a safe and efficient manner. Also known as aerial work platforms, these powerful vehicles are available in many different sizes and configurations; however, all of them have one thing in common: They can be very dangerous. To better protect operators, other platform occupants and workers on the ground, the American National Standards Institute, ANSI, in conjunction with the Scaffold and Access Industrial Association, SAIA, has adopted revisions of its A92 suite of mobile elevating work platform regulations that focus on the design of these vehicles, their safe use and the training of all personnel who participate in aerial lift operations, including operators, occupants, maintenance workers and supervisors.

This program reviews the important changes in the new standards and discusses the basic safe work practices platform operators must follow to prevent accidents and injuries. Topics include platform classification, ANSI training requirements, site risk assessment, rescue planning, pre-operational inspection, work zone inspection, driving safety, raising and working on the platform, and lowering and dismounting a lift.