My loading story... on one of several short term landscaping jobs I had in my younger days, I was sent out to load a yard of mulch onto a customer's trailer. They had one of those little Northern Tool trailers that you buy and bolt together but that wasn't the problem; the loader I was sent out to use had absolutely no brakes. I filled the bucket, raised it, and had them back the trailer underneath it. This enabled me to slowly dump it in rather than running it over because I couldn't stop.
I worked for 4 or 5 different landscaping companies when I needed to fill in some time, and never felt that safety was a concern on any of them.