An auto dismantling yard is a yard first and a workshop second. Vehicles arrive on a hook or a carrier, are drained, are stripped of the parts worth keeping, and the shell is stacked, crushed or sold on. Almost every one of those steps is a materials handling step, and in most yards the powered industrial truck is what performs it. That puts the truck at the centre of the risk profile, ahead of the torch and ahead of the parts puller.
Forklift Safety Data sells no equipment and operates no yards. What follows is how risk concentrates at this facility type and which controls hold up under it.
The four load types a yard handles
Whole vehicles, moved on the forks, on a boom or on a wheeled carrier. Drained and almost-drained components: engines, transmissions, axles, doors, bonnets, catalytic converters. Unit loads of parts on pallets and in bins, the only part of the operation that resembles a normal warehouse. And the residue, bodies and flattened hulks stacked in rows and loaded out for shred.
Each one breaks a different assumption behind the load chart. A whole vehicle has no rated lift point. Its mass sits on a chassis built to be carried at four wheels, and the forks engage sheet metal, floor pan and structural rails that were never designed to take the load. A forklift lifting one is doing something it was not rated to do, and that makes the lift a deliberate capacity decision rather than a routine pick. The load centre, not just the gross weight, is what decides whether the truck stays on its wheels, as the OSHA load handling guidance sets out.
What the yard does differently from a warehouse
Depollution comes before movement, not after. Auto recycler certification programs treat fluid removal as the first processing step. The Automotive Recyclers Association fluid removal guidance calls for fuel, engine and transmission oils, coolant and refrigerant to be drained under cover or on an impervious surface, using telescoping drain trays, vacuum extraction or gravity draining away from floor drains, with labelled containers and a spill kit kept where fluids are handled (snapshot 2026-10-14). Drained engines and cores are plugged or stored in leak-proof containers. The operational consequence for the forklift side is a floor that is routinely wet, and vehicles that are being positioned repeatedly while they are still shedding fluid.
High-voltage vehicles are a separate job. The Automotive Recyclers Association, working with WorkSafeBC, treats hybrids and battery electric vehicles as a distinct handling problem: the vehicle has to be identified and marked as high voltage before it is moved, insulated gloves, a face shield, insulated tools and a pull-away hook have to be available, the battery master disconnect is removed and secured by a trained person, and the vehicle stands for at least 15 minutes before work continues on the high-voltage system (snapshot 2026-10-14). A crashed or flood-damaged pack can already be compromised. For a yard, the practical rule is that an EV is not another car on the forks, and its handling sequence should be written down before the first one arrives.
Vehicles get stacked. Two and three high stacks are normal because land is the scarcest resource in a yard. Stacking concentrates two risks: the stability of the stack itself, and the fact that anyone working the rows is working underneath it. Stacks need to be built on level, drained, load-bearing ground, on stands or racks intended for the purpose rather than on loose rims and blocks, and the rows need a no-walk rule that is enforced rather than assumed.
The surface is not a warehouse floor. Yards are asphalt, concrete slab or graded hardcore, and they heave, crack and hold water. Outdoor work adds wind acting on large flat loads and on empty hulks, and it adds rain, ice and mud to every travel and braking decision. Loads that are stable indoors are not automatically stable on a yard slab.
Some of the pedestrians are customers. At a you-pull-it yard, members of the public walk the rows carrying tools. That changes the pedestrian problem from a training question into a layout question: separated customer routes, a marked edge to the machine aisles, and a rule about where a truck may travel while customers are on site. The general pattern is covered in the warehouse pedestrian safety program, with the addition that the pedestrians here are untrained and unannounced.
Cutting and hot work share the yard. Torch work, shear and baler operation sit close to the travel paths. Fluid-soaked ground and hot work in the same bay is a fire exposure, which is why fire extinguishers are placed wherever cutting is done and why the yard’s housekeeping standard matters more than it does indoors.
Controls that hold up
First, a written vehicle movement rule: who may move a whole vehicle, with what attachment, at what speed, and where a spotter is required. Second, load chart discipline on every non-standard lift, including boom and clamp attachments, because an attachment re-rates the truck rather than extending it. Third, depollution first, with the spill kit and drip containment staged where the work happens rather than in a cupboard. Fourth, a written high-voltage intake sequence that starts at the gate. Fifth, pedestrian segregation by layout, with customer and machine routes physically separated and stacking rows closed to walking.
Where travel lanes cannot be separated from where people work, the last layer is detection and warning equipment and zone-based speed limits through the aisles and the loadout area. The systems index compares the families, and the retrofitting guide covers adding that layer to trucks that are already in service.
Where to start
Score the yard before spending anything. The Risk Scorer turns traffic, layout and load patterns into a ranked list of what to fix first. The choosing a system guide explains how to match a control to a hazard, and the systems index is the reference point for the technology layer. The scrap yard guide covers the adjacent case of loose metal loads and magnet attachments. Yard-level requirements by state are collected under state requirements, and the methodology page explains how the figures on this site are sourced. When you are ready to compare quotes, the quote form puts your site layout in front of suppliers who work with salvage operations.