Near-miss reports underestimate forklift risk because each report depends on someone noticing the event, judging it worth recording and having time to file it. Routine close calls, such as a truck passing a pedestrian at a rack end, rarely clear that bar, and operators may fear blame. The events most likely to be missed are often high-energy ones at blind corners and docks, where neither party saw the other clearly. A site can therefore show few reported near misses and no recordable injuries while its exposure to serious-injury events stays high.
The full guide is why near misses aren’t enough. Reported counts measure reporting behaviour as much as risk: a rise after a campaign usually means people are reporting more, not that the floor became more dangerous. For a truer picture, compare reports with an independent source such as supervisor observations, video review of known hot spots or automatic proximity logs, and rank events by potential severity rather than by count.
Leading vs lagging indicators explains why injury rates trail exposure, and SIF exposure covers how to find the high-energy interactions that matter.