There’s no one way to make a car lift or truck lift safer for the operator. Manufacturers of high-quality automotive lifting products are always looking for better, more secure lifting methods. As a result, many excellent automotive lift safety features are now offered to the consumer. Here are just a few examples of the great technological strides that reputable ALI / ETL certification partners have developed to keep you and your employees safe.
Hydraulic car lifts that are designed with safety in mind use specialized hydraulic flow restrictors or velocity fuses integrated into the hydraulic cylinders or hydraulic circuit to control sudden, rapid decent in the event of a hydraulic component failure. These essential safety devices can dramatically reduce or stop downward travel in a free-fall situation due to a hydraulic system failure other than the cylinders themselves. When exploring lifting solutions, always make sure the car lift design features these crucial components for consistently smooth operation and no surprises.
Pinch points are not just mere annoyances like the name might suggest. Without supervision and careful operation, pinch points can result in damaged property and injury. Reputable manufacturers employ engineers to help identify potential pinch points for hoses and limbs, and then they remove them from the design of an auto lift.
As a redundant safety precaution, all professional-grade car lifts that employ either cable or chain suspension methods should incorporate a slack cable or chain device. These slack cables act as an automatic brake for the supported structure if a suspension component breaks or slackens.
When searching for a car lift, always ensure the manufacturer has a written quality assurance system of policies and procedures that are implemented and managed by quality control personnel. Safety policies and procedures should embrace safety specific subjects like organization, functions, duties and authority; policy and procedure publication, change control and record keeping; engineering drawing and specification publication, change control and record keeping; manufacturing process conformance determination, change control and record keeping; raw material and purchased part conformance determination and record keeping; component and end item conformance testing and record keeping; calibration and record keeping and traceability to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), or other national standards, for all gauges, measuring devices, tools and instruments that affect the quality of the final product; and, control and disposition of nonconforming material.
Always be sure that your car lift is supplied with operation, inspection, service and maintenance instructions that include specifications of the lift, lift rated load capacity, significant lift and bay dimensions, power requirements (compressed air and/or electrical), foundation and floor structural requirements. Car lift installation instructions should be clear with graphics illustrating full step-by-step assembly, exploded drawings with part numbers and descriptions, component packing list, site requirements, mounting and anchoring instructions, recommended clearance around and above lift, plan and elevation details of auto lift layout, final pre-check procedure for assembled lift, operational test & inspection and maintenance instructions.
To raise safety awareness for all operators and bystanders, auto lifts should always include pertinent warning labels, as well as raising and lowering instructions. These labels shall be located at the point of hazard so that they will be plainly visible by the operator when he or she is in position to raise or lower the car lift’s load.
In the next section, we explore how car lifts are required by the ALI / ETL to incorporate these essential safety features and more in order to receive certification.