The vacant plot across the street from my office window is being transformed by the addition of a huge stack of container-sized building modules. It's now two units high, and there's a man on top of the stack guiding new units into place. The units are dangling from a crane whose driver can't see him.
What I've not see before is the top man's safety line, which is attached, like the four cables suspending the unit, to the hook of the crane. It seems not to prevent him wandering extensively over the top of the stack, so I wonder how it would stop him if he fell off. I also wonder what's to stop the crane driver - who can't see him, remember - inadvertently hoisting him into the sky when he goes to pick up the next unit. A Harold Lloyd scene waiting to happen.
Anyone with more experience than I have care to comment on this?
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This is your boss.
kindly pay attention to the meeting and stop looking out the window.
And don't try and kid me its blue sky thinking.
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They are in touch by two way radio...or it's modern equivalent.
Pat
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>> two way radio...or it's modern equivalent.
'Left a bit, Bert... sorry, I mean right... forward a bit... don't let it down yet! Don't let it dow... AAARGH!'
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As Pat says they've probably got handsfree talkie walkie sets. Safety line may be on some sort of locking device similar to those extending dog leads that owners of small breeds deploy against cyclists.
Safety lines seem to be latest manifestation of H&S. Scaffolders unloading lorries are safety lined to a frame on the trailer carrying the poles and planks.
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>> Safety line may be on some sort of locking device similar to those extending dog leads that owners of small >>breeds deploy against cyclists.
Not another hard done by cyclist thread drift. :-)
Last edited by: Old Navy on Thu 18 Oct 12 at 16:47
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My grandfather was a crane driver, ended up a large timber yard in Stratford where he opearted what he called a "derrick" crane but we now know them as tower cranes.
As a youth I watched him at work once, his Banksman used to make complicated and barely visible minute movements with his hands and wrists to direct the load, and grandpappy deliverd the stuff with milimetre precision. Strange really grandad was blind in one eye and the sight in his other was suspect!
When directing parking cars (he always had to be in charge and direct cars at large family gatherings parking "dahn the club") he used to become a banksman and make the same strange hand movents. Everyone knew he was as blind as a bat and had no idea what the hand movements meant, so they simply ignored him and parked where they liked. That annoyed him immensly and usually ened up in a right ole bull 'n cow
He was of the old school east end driver, wouldnt drive anything other than an Austin, eyesight that never came anywhere near the legal minimum, never passed a test, and never drove with less than 7 pints inside him.
They dont make them like that anymore
Fortunatley.
Last edited by: Zero on Thu 18 Oct 12 at 17:02
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I'm working in the Canary Wharf area and was outside having a smoke and watching a crane who's cab was out of sight lowering stuff precisely. I spoke to the bloke at the bottom, they'd been working as a team for a number of years and he said it was fairly easy...
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>> I'm working in the Canary Wharf area and was outside having a smoke and watching
>> a crane who's cab was out of sight lowering stuff precisely. I spoke to the
>> bloke at the bottom, they'd been working as a team for a number of years
>> and he said it was fairly easy...
Said the bloke at the bottom......
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>> Fortunatley.
>>
Definately.
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That's where he's trying to go ON, cyclists again;)
Pat
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Bromp
I've found that sixteen stone at 10-15MPH through one of those leads has (so far) always ended up with the rat losing.
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Some of the more anally-minded H&S bods recommend wearing a harness when you're sheeting and roping a load on a lorry. In my exprience you're more likely to come a cropper tripping over the damn safety line or getting it tangled in the ropes you're throwing over the lorry.
What next; parachutes for steel erectors?
Last edited by: Harleyman on Thu 18 Oct 12 at 20:26
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Her indoors worked for a housebuilder a few years back. Brickies had to have inflatable bouncy castles each side of a wall in case they fell off.
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>> Brickies had to have inflatable
>> bouncy castles each side of a wall in case they fell off.
>>
It's a pity that Humpty Dumpty didn't have them.
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>> Bromp
>>
>> I've found that sixteen stone at 10-15MPH through one of those leads has (so far)
>> always ended up with the rat losing.
Probably a blessing in reality but I can only muster 8 stone 10.
It makes a difference.
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