I have long awaited this day. The day when I have in my hands concrete proof that — despite all the loud, pushy, persistent voices to the contrary — I was right. I’m finally in a position to shut up, once and for all, that miserable and screeching chorus of voices that didn’t believe the global forklift warning light market was worth a damn. Well, haters, listen to this: according to a noted market research and intelligence providing firm, the forklift warning light market is going to reach $296.3 million by 2035 with a pants-filling 5.2% compound annual growth rate (CAGR)!
Are you fucking kidding me? 5.2% CAGR? That’s more than I ever hoped for, and I have always been a huge supporter of the forklift warning light market, and, hell, the whole forklift warning light community and culture overall! Motherfudgers, we are entering the golden age of forklift warning lights, and I hope you’re strapped in and down for one hell of a ride.
[Ed Note: It’s at this point that I have to give a bit of background. The Autopian gets all sorts of emails from various companies who want us to write things about them (we’re grateful for it), and recently we got this one:
As you can see, Jason has chosen to write about this because apparently he thinks this is HUGE news. Or maybe he doesn’t. Honestly, I’m not even sure on this one. -DT].
I remember just a few weeks ago I was out at a fondue restaurant with some friends, and who should show up but one of those guys who seemingly bases their whole miserable personality on being a hater of forklift warning lights and their possible market growth. You know the kind! They’re those jerks that, when near a forklift, give dirty looks and sneer at the use of pretty much any warning lamp, even long-established icons like the rotating or strobing amber lamp, often in one of those bulb cages.
They’re the kind of assholes who, on their personal forklifts, have removed all lamps and lighting, and “run dark” or “cloaked” or whatever bullshit term they call it. They think it’s cool to contradict OSHA but the truth is they’re just unsafe and, as I said, assholes.
Anyway, so this jackass, let’s call him Jack Ash to protect his identity, he overheard me animatedly talking to some friends about some incredible new innovations in forklift warning lamp tech, like these incredible new lights that don’t just shine or flash indiscriminately, but actually project crisp-edged light patterns on the floor around the forklift.
It could be something like this blue disc that the ABL 500 LED Blue light projects, providing ample advanced warning to anyone around the forklift:
…or even these incredible new warning lights that actually project an arc around the perimeter of the forklift:
I mean, come on, this is some groundbreaking forklift warning light shit! But all that is lost on people like Jack Ash, who can’t see past their own inane biases against forklift warning lights and felt compelled to interrupt my conversation.
“Forklift warning lights? What a crock of shit!” Jack bellowed at my table, stunning us all into silence with his profound rudeness.
“Forklift warning lights are for ignorant, ugly babies,” he continued, “and the market for them will never grow, ever! Not even by 1% CAGR!” Then he threw back his head and laughed, a loud, braying cackle that sounded like a dog’s chew toy trapped in the gears of a combine.
“How dare you, Jack,” I replied with genuine passion, a lone tear of rage tracking down my face, “the forklift warning light market, buoyed by advances in warehouse automation and now with inbuilt IoT (internet of things) integration is very likely to see incredible growth – why, I wouldn’t be surprised to see a four or even five percent CAGR!”
But Jack wouldn’t even listen; instead he took the large pot of cheese fondue my friends and I were sharing and decanted it right into my lap, the molten cheese saturating my thick macrame pants and saturating my entire crotch in rich, redolent, golden-colored cheese. Thankfully, my 40% asbestos boxer-briefs protected my genitals from the worst of the assault, but it was still a maddening and humiliating ordeal.
I was told my screams awoke two comatose patients in the hospital, over three miles away. Both chose to return to their comas after being allowed to scroll social media for 15 minutes.
As the cheese cooled, it solidified and pinned me to the wooden bench I was seated on, allowing Jack to exit with impunity. Hours later, after municipal workers chiseled away the cheese that imprisoned me, I vowed to make that sonnovabitch pay for his arrogant dismissal of the forklift warning light market.
And I believe that today, thanks to this bold and encouraging projection, I believe I have. The global forklift warning light market is surging like a motherflapping rocket, with such irrefutable facts such as these backing this up:
” The market for global forklift warning lights grew at a growth rate of 5.2% from 2020 to 2024, and by the end of 2024, it was valued at USD 169.8 million. The stringent regulations related to forklift warning lights is a major factor for the steady increase of the market during the forecast period.”
Those are just facts, bitches. And the forecast of 5.2% growth leading to a total market of $296.3 million, with a North American market share as of 2025 being and incredible 34.6% – things really have never looked better for the forklift warning light market. And this growth isn’t just based on hope and guesswork – there’s stringent safety regulations that are well-enforced industry-wide that will make this happen!
So let me make this as fucking clear as I possibly can: all you pessimistic assholes and jackasses that are out there belittling or demeaning or downplaying the global forklift warning light market, you are cooked. Have some fucking dignity and give that shit up now, while you still can, before Big Forklift Warning Light just mows your ass into the ground, without even breaking a sweat.
You live in Forklift Warning Light world now, bitches, and you best get used to it.
[AN ASIDE, IF I MAY: This report from Fact.MR also included this genuinely awful AI-generated “infographic” which is remarkably free of “info” and is pretty miserable as a “graphic,” too:
What is this garbage? How is this considered okay to release to the public? Visually, it’s awful – that forklift has angles that would give MC Escher a migraine, and what are those orange-and-black molten lumps of goo? And then there’s all the not-text. Sure, it got the title and the 5.2% right, but everything else isn’t even remotely legible? Just get a fucking designer, Fact.MR. This shit is embarrassing.]
Can confirm, used to deliver a bunch of warnings lights to people when i worked for a heavy duty truck parts company 🙂
Forklift drivers don’t need certified. I wasn’t certified never even drove a forklift. But when the newspaper I worked for needed someone to unload a semi trailer of rolls of newsprint and our union pressman was nowhere to be found I stepped up. Sure I may have took one of the barn doors off the building but I got that truck unloaded. Funny thing I was far more incompetent at inserting ads into the news section of the newspaper when I was needed to assist our nonunion lolit (props to who can decide that) staff.
I’m sorry, but Big Forklift Warning Light trumpeting “IoT integration” is just so 2020. They’re equating these lights with refrigerators that post messages on their screens when you’re low on I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter? Puhleeze!
Everyone knows that in 2025, if your product isn’t AI-Enabled you’re doing it wrong! If the poor PR person who wrote that press release had only created it with “thought-leading disruptive AI multimodal large language model trained tools,” the release would have touted “AI Enablement Leads Industry Revolution,” and future CAGR would have been forecast at 6 – or dare I say – 7%!
There’s a joke – or maybe not a joke – in Silicon Valley that every press release now requires three things: a subject; a verb; and “AI”.
And what’s with the “D” in the USD graphic? Did it melt from too-close proximity to one of the lasers (with or without sharks)?
God I can’t believe how much the glorious Autopian site is missing because they won’t listen to my huge intelligent brain. S/ First why are we taught to give pedestrians the right of way on streets where hundreds of thousands of cars travel but overweight forklifts gets the right of way over pedestrians? Are we training pedestrians to feel protected so we can legally kill them with forklifts?
PLUS why are there no business majors on Autopian? Where is Mr. Taillight Torchinsky? That joke of a forklift taillight showing EAT IT DOUSCHBAG is a multimillion idea that far eclipses the tongue in cheek joke shown. I bet if you design a taillight that could do this or customize a message using a 3d printer Autopian would never lack funds.
If you do this I get at least 10% of the top and the first deuschbag taillight.
“There was never genius without a tincture of madness” – Aristotle.
Well Torch, this puts your firmly up there with Diogenes
Another uplifting slow news story.
I’m not so sure why businesses would invest in these. Reducing the workforce through attrition (especially the workers with no situational awareness) seems like current ideology. Now you can just replace them with bots.
On a related note. “Slow Children Playing” signs also seem to be on a market growth trajectory. Interestingly, sales of “Smart Children Playing” signs have been flat.
Smart children playing just gets them or their parents beat up. I don’t understand why advertising the children are slow isn’t a liberal explosion point because it affects their self esteem?
I don’t believe your story to be true.
Let’s do some cheese-in-the-crotch calculations though:
$169,800,000 / $750(?) = 226,400 = 4528 per state = 26 per town of CT
$169,800 divided by $750 is not 226,400.
“There are many benefits to being forklift certified.”
obligatory Staplerfahrer Klaus link
https://youtu.be/ChOHnSL7ZCg?si=uD6EbrB5vc8hwgkO
Forklifts are predators. Light their asses up.
While this is hilarious, it’s also no joke. I just went to purchase an ABL 500 LED Blue light for the front of my new Miata and these these are fucking pricey ($133+). Like now I’m thinking about buying some stock in ABL.
I really want one of these for the front and rear of each of our cars, but it would be quite an investment.
This is the kind of stuff that makes me happy to fork over my cash for a membership.
With that said, I worked a few years in the manufacturing space where we had forklifts running all over the place, and some of those laser lights were pretty cool but could play mind games with you if they hit reflective surfaces (like the stainless guardrails that isolated the dedicated walkpaths in the warehouse). Nothing like walking down a set of stairs and suddenly there is red laser lights making you think that Skynet has gone live and the forklifts are hunting you down…