LENEXA, Kan. — Forklift safety is more important than you might think, and one metro company is aiming to make the machines safer.

Arrow Acquisition in Lenexa said they invented a device to help drivers know how much weight the machine can handle.

The digital screen that attaches to the forklift will tell the driver how fast they are going, but also how much weight it’s holding. If it has too much, the operator will see the bar in the red zone, and they know it’s time to reduce the weight.

Arrow Acquisition CEO Terry Melvin said the majority of forklift accidents are due to them tipping over or forward. The technology keeps operators in tune with how much weight they’re loading to prevent accidents.

Melvin said many forklift accidents happen due to worn down forks that are dragged across a warehouse floor. He said Arrow created a wear indication system for the forks so it’s clear when they need to be replaced.

“We were concerned because of the number of forklifts that are out there,” Melvin said. “They’re everywhere. People in all these different industries — you see these things on the news all the time, and you read them through the statistics. And OSHA actually publishes statistics about how many people die, how many people are injured, and what the property damage is, and it’s really excessive from our vantage point.”

According to OSHA, one in six workplace deaths are due to forklifts. More than 100,000 people are injured in forklift incidents each year, and almost 90 of them are deadly.