What is the safe way to move roll cages and trolleys?
Load heavy items at the bottom and keep the load below the top rail and below your eye line, check the castors and brakes before you start, push rather than pull with both hands on the cage, keep to walking pace, and use two people wherever the cage has to cross a dock lip, a ramp, a tail lift edge or a kerb. Roll cages, hand trolleys and sack trucks are the workhorses of grocery distribution, parcel networks and store deliveries, and because they look simple they are rarely trained properly. Most roll cage injuries are to hands, feet and backs, and most happen at transitions: the dock, the tail lift and the kerb.
Last reviewed September 2026 · Applies to the Manual Handling Training for Warehouse and Logistics Workers course.
Loading a roll cage so it moves well
A badly loaded cage is dangerous before it moves. Put heavy items on the bottom shelf and lighter, bulkier items above, keep the load inside the cage's footprint so nothing catches on doors, racking or the tail lift gate, and stay under the cage's rated capacity, which is printed on the frame. A top-heavy cage tips on the first uneven surface.
Keep the load height below the top rail and below your eye line. If you cannot see over it, you cannot see the person, the forklift or the drop you are pushing towards. Close the gates or fit the straps or security bars before moving, so product cannot slide out onto your feet or onto the floor in front of the wheels.
Unloading at the far end is a manual handling task in its own right. Picking heavy items from the bottom shelf of a cage means a floor-level lift with a reach, one of the worst combinations. Where the store or dock has one, use a lift table; where it does not, unload from the top down and bring the bottom items out towards you before you lift them.
Pushing, pulling and steering
Push with both hands on the frame at roughly waist to chest height, arms slightly bent, body behind the cage and feet clear of the wheels. Pushing keeps the load in front of you and lets you stop with your body weight; pulling puts the cage behind your heels, twists your back and means you walk backwards into traffic. The exception is a short pull to line up in a trailer or a tight bay.
Most cages have two fixed and two swivel castors. Keep the swivel castors at your end so you can steer; a cage pushed from the fixed end fights you at every corner. Keep to walking pace, slow well before corners and doorways, and never let a cage run ahead of you or coast to a stop. A moving cage is heavy enough to break a foot.
One cage at a time. Pushing two cages nose to tail, or pulling one while pushing another, is a common practice under time pressure and a common cause of crushed hands and run-over feet. If a run needs two cages moved, it needs two trips or a tug.
Dock lips, ramps and tail lifts
The dock is where roll cages hurt people. The lip of a dock leveller, the gap between a dock plate and a trailer bed, a plate that is not fully seated and a trailer that is not level all stop a castor dead while the load keeps going, and the cage tips or the frame drives into your hands. Slow to a crawl at any transition, cross it square, and use two people for a loaded cage, one steadying and one pushing.
On a tail lift, position the cage inside the platform with the wheels away from the edge, apply the cage brake if it has one and use the platform's roll-stop or retention ramps. Keep your feet inside the platform, keep your hands off the rail nearest the building or the truck body, and do not ride a tail lift with a cage unless your site's procedure allows it and the platform is rated for it. On a slope the lift platform is not level, and a cage will run across it.
Ramps of any length are a two-person job for a loaded cage, and a job for a powered tug or a smaller load where the ramp is steep. Never stand below a cage on a ramp, and never rely on a cage brake alone to hold it while you do something else.
Kerbside and customer premises
Store and customer deliveries take the cage out of the controlled environment of the dock and onto footpaths, driveways and shop floors. Kerbs are the dock lip of the street: a loaded cage will not mount one without a tail lift or a kerb ramp, and trying to bump it up is where backs and wrists go. Use the tail lift to the footpath, use a kerb ramp if the site provides one, or break the load down onto a hand trolley or sack truck.
Look at the ground before you commit: gravel, cracked pavers, grates, gradients towards the road, wet leaves and shop thresholds all stop castors. Stairs are not for roll cages. If the delivery point is up steps, the load goes on a sack truck in smaller amounts, or on a stair-climbing trolley if you have been trained on one, or it does not go up. Working alone at the kerb, with traffic, weather and a schedule, is exactly the situation to slow down and follow the plan rather than improvise.
If a customer premises is unsafe for the equipment you have, you are entitled to stop and report it. Module 6, Lifting, Carrying, Pushing and Pulling Loads, covers tail-lift operation on slopes, roll cages at the kerb, hand trolleys on stairs and what to do when a delivery point is unsafe.
Hand trolleys, sack trucks and pre-use checks
A sack truck moves a load by tipping it onto its wheels, and the tipping point is the moment of highest force. Load heavy items low and against the back plate, secure a tall load with a strap, tip the truck towards you with one foot on the axle and keep the load balanced over the wheels once it is moving. Stair work with a sack truck is something many sites prohibit outright; where yours permits it, it is a trained, two-person task with a reduced load, not an improvisation.
Before every shift, check that castors spin and swivel, that brakes hold, that gates, straps and security bars are present and working, and that the frame is not bent or cracked. A cage with a seized castor takes far more force to start and steers unpredictably; tag it and report it. Module 7, Equipment, Aids and Tools for Warehousing and Freight, covers pre-use checks and defect reporting for cages, trolleys and tail lifts, and Module 8, Reporting, Incidents and Ongoing Safety, covers what to do when the aid you need is missing or broken.
This training is theory. Your site's cage loading standard, tail-lift procedure and delivery rules, and the guidance of your state or territory regulator, take precedence over the general practice described here.
Common questions
Sources
- Safe Work Australia — Model Code of Practice: Hazardous manual tasks — The national code the state and territory regulators adopt or mirror.
- Safe Work Australia — Lifting, pushing and pulling (manual tasks)
- National Heavy Vehicle Regulator — Chain of Responsibility — Loading and load restraint duties (not applicable in WA and the NT).
General information about Australian work health and safety duties, not legal advice. Your employer’s procedures and the regulator in your state take precedence.
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