The Most Dangerous Eight Seconds in Any Facility

By DAVE DALLESKE  |  Senior Vice President of Sales, U.S.  |  A-SAFE, Inc.

Anyone who has spent time in or around industrial operations has seen the camera footage. A forklift approaches an intersection as a pedestrian steps out from behind a rack, doorway, or piece of equipment. There is a brief moment of uncertainty, followed by a sudden stop or a late correction, and the clip ends. 

What those videos rarely show is what happens afterward, because that is usually when A-SAFE finally gets involved. We receive the call after the incident; sometimes the same day, other times after a near miss that finally prompted concern or an internal review that raised uncomfortable questions. I have been part of those conversations for years, and while each situation has its own context, the underlying pattern is consistently familiar. 

A pedestrian, focused on their task or destination, enters a shared intersection. At the same time, a forklift operator navigating with limited visibility and competing operational pressures reacts later than intended or attempts a last-second correction. There is no recklessness involved and no deliberate disregard for safety, and both individuals are operating in good faith within an environment that leaves very little room for error. 

In many cases, the immediate outcome of the incident is not severe, but the operational consequences quickly pile up. Production slows or stops while the situation is assessed, leadership becomes involved, and safety teams are asked why the area of concern had not been addressed sooner. Even worse – someone reviews photos or notes from a previous walkthrough and realizes the location had previously been identified as a concern. 

What stands out in nearly every case is not that the risk was unknown, but that it had been accepted. Over time, the facility had simply learned to operate around it.  Essentially, the tolerance level for risk was “high”.

How Mixed Traffic Becomes Normalized 

Mixed traffic is rarely the result of deliberate design. More often, it emerges gradually as facilities evolve in response to operational demands. As throughput increases, layouts are adjusted, headcount grows, and temporary routes begin to take on a permanent role. What once felt manageable starts to carry more risk, but only in brief, intermittent moments, and because those moments pass without incident most of the time, they are easy to overlook. 

Over time, informal behaviors begin to fill the gaps left by the environment. Operators instinctively slow at certain intersections, pedestrians wait for eye contact before crossing, and supervisors caution new hires about specific areas during onboarding. These adaptations create the impression that risk is being managed.  However, in reality, employees on foot are compensating for a system that was never designed to separate them from work vehicle traffic. 

As long as nothing goes wrong, the absence of an incident is mistaken for evidence that the system is working. 

The Limits of Training and Awareness 

When an incident occurs, the response often focuses on behavior. Training is refreshed, signage is updated, and reminders are issued about staying alert and following procedures. Training plays an important role, but it assumes ideal operating conditions: clear visibility, minimal noise, low fatigue, and sufficient time to react. That assumption rarely reflects the reality of active facilities, particularly during peak periods or high-pressure shifts. 

The incidents we see are rarely caused by a lack of awareness. They occur because mixed-traffic environments compress decision-making into fractions of a second. Blind corners, stacked inventory, inconsistent lighting, and production pressure all converge to reduce reaction time simultaneously. Under those conditions, even experienced forklift operators and attentive pedestrians are forced to rely on instantaneous judgment in moments where judgment alone is insufficient. 

At a certain point, no amount of re-training can compensate for a system that depends on perfect timing to remain safe. 

Where Traditional Protection Falls Short 

When physical protection is introduced, it is often reactive and designed primarily to resist impact rather than manage it. Steel barriers and rails may appear robust, but in mixed-traffic areas they tend to deform under repeated contact, loosen anchor points, or transfer energy back into the floor, the vehicle, or nearby structures. Over time, damage accumulates, repairs become necessary, and barriers are removed temporarily, sometimes remaining out of place far longer than intended. 

A-SAFE safety experts have seen this time and time again. We’ve returned to facilities years after an initial site assessment only to find the same intersections damaged and the same risks unresolved. Protection was present, but it was not designed for the reality of frequent, low-speed impacts in active operational environments.

Why Segregation Changes Outcomes 

Facilities that make sustained progress tend to approach the problem differently. Rather than attempting to manage interactions between people and vehicles, they focus on eliminating those interactions wherever possible. Effective traffic segregation removes ambiguity from the environment by establishing clear, physical boundaries between where pedestrians belong and where vehicles must operate. Instead of relying on constant vigilance and split-second decisions, this type of plan creates separation that is visible, enforced, and consistent. 

Material performance is critical in this context. Barriers & gates engineered to absorb and dissipate energy, rather than resist it until failure, continue to perform after impact. That durability preserves segregation over time. And that durability is ultimately what reduces risk on a lasting basis. 

The effect is often noticeable quickly. Pedestrians move with greater confidence; operators no longer hesitate at former shared crossings; and near-miss discussions begin to fade because the situations that caused them no longer exist. 

The Cost of Waiting 

In many conversations, there is an underlying belief that the facility has simply been fortunate so far. While that mindset is understandable, it carries its own risk. Serious pedestrian incidents rarely occur in unexpected locations. They tend to happen at intersections already familiar to safety teams in areas people slow down for, hesitate at, or point out during onboarding. These locations are not isolated exceptions within an otherwise safe system, but indicators that the system is operating with limited tolerance for error. 

Treating these areas as unavoidable realities means accepting that risk must be managed indefinitely. But there is a solution — We must treat them as design problems. Through appropriate safety design, we have the opportunity to eliminate that risk altogether. 

A Final Thought 

Pedestrian safety is often framed as a behavioral challenge, but behavior is the last line of defense. A more durable solution lies in how facilities are designed to manage movement, energy, and interaction. When mixed traffic is accepted as inevitable, safety depends on constant attention and favorable timing. When it is recognized as a design flaw, it becomes something that can be engineered out of the operation. 

Those few seconds at a shared intersection carry disproportionate weight in many facilities today. With the right approach, they do not have to.