How\u2019s everyone doing this week? Marty T Hawkins here with Warehouse and Operations as a Career where we talk about everything Operations, Warehousing and Transportation! Last week we talked a little about the importance of a few tools that are important to our safety and success. Today I thought we\u2019d expand along the same line and discuss a few more tools we see every day but may not use as we need too or items, we should be paying more attention to. A few of them we may not even understand fully. That being said a question we were asked last month comes to mind. That belly switch on the end rider, you know the red bar switch at the end of the steering handle on our walkie and platform rider pallet jacks. A very important safety feature indeed. But it is not a brake and not a reverse switch. A listener asked what it was really for. He\u2019d been told to never use it as a break, but I guess no one explained what its real purpose was for. I\u2019ve only needed it once in my career, but I was sure glad it functioned as designed that day. So, it's there for when we are in front of the machine walking with it and we get caught between it and a solid force, like a rack or wall. When the machine is being powered forward and we are backed up into something the button will press upon us, like in our belly region and immediately reverse. Even if the throttle handle is rolled forward the machine will reverse instantly. One time I was walking my jack, I was standing to the side, but the control bar was turned as I was about to go around an aisle end cap. Another selector bumped my pallet pushing the jack into me. The belly switch was activated by my hip when the handle was pushed into me. It backed up like twice before I had let go of the handle. And that\u2019s exactly what it was designed to do. I\u2019ve seen people use it to back up a bay or so when selecting or staging a pallet up on the docks. That\u2019s not its purpose and I wouldn't recommend doing that. It's just as easy to roll back the throttle or thumb bar and we\u2019ll have much more control of our unit. Remember the belly switch overrides our throttle bar so if we are rolling the accelerator bar even the least little bit once we let go of the belly button our unit is coming forward at us again.
\nSince we\u2019re talking about our rider jacks, how many of us know about and understands the rabbit switch on our grab bars or stable bars? Yes, it's an additional speed. Not really a gear but it does increase our travel speed. Our maintenance department sets the speed our units can travel. Typically, there are one to five settings on acceleration and the rabbit or I think they call it a High Travel Speed switch setting. The recommended setting on that switch is usually at 80%. How many of us just automatically get on and hold that switch down for every travel? And a really bad habit I see while out in the field is the switch being taped down all the time. Please don\u2019t do that. You, may be an experienced operator and know the machine is going to have all that additional torque when you roll the accelerator bar to full open, but a new boot or a less experienced operator could be and probably will be thrown off the jack. As professionals, equipment operators, remember we carry the responsibility of following all the preferred work methods and rules. I almost certain there's not an operator\u2019s manual or company rule out there that encourages us to tape down the rabbit buttons on our equipment!
\nAnd the Deadman switch on equipment like the standup reach lifts or dock lifts, let\u2019s talk about those real quick. Maybe think of an emergency brake. Well, let me back up a bit. The Deadman brake is a switch we stand on that releases the braking component to our lift and engages the electronic components like pre check diagnostics, steering and the electric motors. In my experience it\u2019s just that, an emergency break. let go of it and the truck can come to a jarring stop.