Ask the Expert: Health and safety officials have been paying close attention to their vehicle lifts lately. How can technicians avoid citations and fines?

Q: Health and safety officials have been paying close attention to their vehicle lifts lately. How can technicians avoid citations and fines?

Ron Lainhart, parts and service manager, Rotary Lift: When health and safety officials visit a vehicle service facility, they will check to see if all lifts holding vehicles in the air are resting on their locks. That’s because “lowering to locks” relieves the lift’s hydraulic pressure and reduces the chance that the vehicle will free-fall if the lift system fails. Each lift that is not on its locks with a vehicle in the air could be cited. Rotary Lift’s LockLight accessory shows at a glance if a lift is resting on its locks. The LockLight device is approximately 4" square with a large light in its center. It can be mounted to the lift structure or control console, and shines a green light when the lift is lowered to its locks. This enables shop managers to quickly see if all lifts in use at a given time are properly resting on their locks, and encourages technicians to wait until the light is green before they start to work on a vehicle.

Information provided by: Rotary Lift