"Denial" is not the name of a river in Egypt.
The use of pallets, or even bare forks, for lifting people is all too routine. So are the accidents. And the fatalities.
You try to get these firms to buy a cage, or even make a cage, and they look at you as if you're the village idiot. Oh, no, we do it this way all the time.... and reports of local accidents are completely ignored.
Heck, I've received strange looks for spreading the forks.... and you ought to see the ones I get when I attach the cage with a chain!
The only bright spot is my experience where I had them make a cage. At the time, they thought I was being fussy, and they decided to humor me.
The first thing they liked was that my work went much quicker. Since then, they've grown to love the cage, and have found all sorts of uses for it. Work that previously took hours, when done from ladders, is now done in minutes.
Working from a forklift isn't my first choice; and, as you mentioned, the driver is a critical part of the job. I have actually used lifts that had a remote set of controls, that would let you operate the forks from the basket.
