Understanding Powered Haulage Safety in Surface Mining

Today, roughly half of all mining fatalities involve powered haulage. Recently, the MSHA introduced new mobile equipment safety standards designed to save lives. In this article, we’re talking about powered haulage safety and how surface mining safety training can help you stay safe and compliant. 

Why Powered Haulage Safety Matters in Mining 

According to the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA), 2025 has been the deadliest year for powered haulage safety since 2006. 

One of the reasons powered haulage injuries and deaths are so common is that “powered haulage” covers the use of a lot of motorized equipment, including haul trucks, front-end loaders, conveyor belts, and rail cars. As a result, anything from a vehicle collision to a conveyor accident to an equipment rollover falls under the powered haulage safety umbrella. 

In addition to how common these machines are, the scale of powered haulage equipment makes accidents severe. The size and weight of powered haulage equipment, which can be several stories tall, give them the ability to easily crush pedestrians or smaller equipment, and their size creates large blind spots that make accidents more commonplace.  

New MSHA Powered Haulage Rules 

In 2024, the MSHA recognized the inadequacy of previous standards by introducing new rules specifically aimed at improving powered haulage safety.  

The new rules require all operators that use surface mobile equipment – both surface mines and underground mines – to have a written plan for mobile equipment safety.  

This necessitates hazard analysis, site- and equipment-specific safety plans, and mobile equipment safety training. 

What’s Covered in Powered Haulage Safety Training? 

An MSHA surface mining course typically covers: 

• Powered Haulage Safety Regulations 

• Hazard Identification and Prevention 

• Accident Prevention and Safe Operation 

• Emergency Procedures in Haulage Incidents 

Most importantly, regular training on this topic can keep regulations and potential risks at the forefront of workers’ minds, reducing risk by increasing their awareness and compliance. 

Since powered haulage safety covers so many types of heavy equipment, it can be easiest to tackle the common hazards you may face in the field by looking at several categories separately. 

Mobile Equipment Safety Hazards  

Mobile equipment safety hazards are largely the target of the new MSHA powered haulage rules. Mobile equipment used on the surface includes haul trucks, front-end loaders, bulldozers, and load-haul dumps (LHDs).  

Common safety hazards presented by this equipment include: 

• Limited Visibility: Large mobile equipment leaves operators with huge blind spots, making collisions, rollovers, and struck-by or caught-between accidents too common.  

• Rollovers: The sheer size of some surface mobile equipment allows it to roll over not just pedestrians but also smaller equipment. Some conditions can increase the likelihood of rollover, like poor brake maintenance or poor traffic controls in busy areas. 

• Lack of Appropriate Seatbelt Use: MSHA engineers estimate that 3 or 4 miner deaths could be prevented each year with adequate seatbelt use. Zero-tolerance policies and new technology, like interlock systems that prevent equipment operation without seatbelt use, can prevent operator deaths. 

• Distractions: “Distracted driving” isn’t just a highway texting problem. When operating or working near heavy mobile equipment, distractions and inattention can become deadly. 

Road Design Hazards 

Sometimes in powered haulage safety, the mobile equipment isn’t the problem. Sometimes, mining accident prevention is as much about road design as equipment safeguards. 

Roads must be wide enough to prevent collisions, with berms or guardrails at least the height of the largest equipment’s mid-axle. Curves require superelevation features, intersections call for good visibility and traffic control, and workers should only use dump locations that are known to be stable. 

Conveyor Safety Hazards 

Conveyor systems, while enormously helpful in mining, can cause serious injuries to workers, whether it’s due to abrasion, crushing, entanglement, or struck-by incidents. 

Common conveyor safety hazards include: 

• Inadequate Machine Guarding: If the moving parts of a conveyor system aren’t properly covered, workers’ clothing, hair, or body parts can get caught in rotating parts or crushed between moving parts and stationary objects. 

• Maintenance on Energized Equipment: If workers fail to fully de-energize a conveyor system with lock-out/tag-out failsafes before maintenance, repair, or troubleshooting, then the equipment can energize unexpectedly and cause entanglement, crush, or abrasion injuries. 

• Improper Crossovers: Workers should always use (and have access to) designated, properly installed crossover points for conveyor systems. Crossing at unsafe points can result in serious injuries. 

• Falling, Jutting, or Ejected Materials: Materials on the belt can cause struck-by or impact hazards with improper loading or inadequate maintenance. 

Electrical Risks. Electrical injuries, fires, or explosions can be caused by faulty wiring or other system failures. 

MSHA’s Requirements for Surface Mining Safety Training 

MSHA Part 46 sets specific requirements for surface mining safety training, including written and approved training plans, as well as annual refreshers. 

Training must be conducted by a competent person and recorded on Form 5000-23. Records must be kept for at least two years. 

Why Mining Safety Training Is a Smart Choice 

The availability of mining safety training online has made it easier than ever to keep workers up-to-date and refreshed on critical topics like powered haulage safety. 

Reasons to consider providing MSHA Part 46 training online through a trusted provider include: 

• Convenient for Everyone: The shiftwork nature of mining makes in-person training logistically challenging and expensive. Online, self-paced courses allow employees and contractors to complete their training whenever it’s convenient, with little fuss. 

• Self-Paced Learning: We all learn at our own pace. Online courses allow miners to work through the material as quickly or slowly as they need to, without impeding on anyone else’s learning style. 

• Compliant and Up to Date: With the right training provider, you can be sure that training meets MSHA surface mining safety training requirements and is always in sync with the latest rules and recommendations – all with no effort on your part!  

• Easy Documentation: The MSHA requires you to keep training records for two years. Online programs provide a standardized certificate of completion for each student, and providers that offer a learning management system make it even easier to not only gather records for compliance purposes, but to assign courses as they expire and track workers’ completion rates. 

Start Your MSHA Powered Haulage Safety Course 

As an online compliance training provider with over 25 years of environmental health and safety experience, our courses are MSHA-compliant and ready for your use. Courses are self-paced and available from any device with internet, and our business solutions include a learning management system that makes meeting your MSHA Part 46 training requirements a snap.  

As one of the deadliest and most historically neglected mining topics, powered haulage safety is a crucial part of modern mining accident prevention. Our online MSHA Surface Mining Powered Haulage Safety course can help you bridge the knowledge gap in your workforce and keep you compliant with MSHA Part 46 haulage requirements.  

Enroll today to get started!