No, really.
Picture a forklift, raised to full height.
On the forks is a standard wooden pallet.
Centered over the pallet is a 4′ x 8′ sheet of plywood.
Balanced on the plywood is a 10′ step ladder.
Standing at the top of the ladder, a guy is drilling holes in steel roof beams for the installation of light fixtures.
I didn’t stay to watch.
More construction stupidity. (Note – I didn’t have any problems with pop-up windows on the site linked, but others have.)
h/t mhb
A great set of pics, and though some look to be in countries without the safety provisions we’re used to having in N. America, we are beginning to get pretty shoddy also. The influx of cheaper 3rd world labour has meant a lack of hard hats, proper boots, safety harnesses and proper training. Global free trade is a good thing, but I’m with the unions on the lessening of proper apprenticeships and training since this became widespread.
I think the stupidity award goes to most of the trades in the boom times. I can’t remember the last time I have seen a house “square or true”.
“Don’t know, don’t care, just give me my money and let the ignorant home buyer deal with it”
I live in Vancouver. About 35 years ago a group started to demolish, by hand, an old building across the street from my office. They were not wearing hard hats, couldn’t see their boots. I called Workman’s Compensation Board. Within an hour all work stopped. It restarted in the afternoon and all the workers were wearing nice shiny new hard hats.
Try this snake hunting safety presentation.
They show the proper PPE, the identification of the hazard,use of proper lighting, etc.
http://www.joe-ks.com/MultiMedia/ConfinedSpaceSafety.pps
But you wouldn’t catch me doing it.
nah just a python, now a Gaboon viper on the other hand!
This could be Slovakia. I remember one crew repairing a barrier between sidewalk and street. The only one with safety gear was the welder – but they did have an umbrella so they didn’t get sunburned. Also, my husband and I watched with fascination as the roof on the apartment building near our pension was repaired. Multi little gables rebuilt and not a hard hat or safety rope in sight.
Now we are required to have a company safety plan ,with all employees certified, before we can start work on any projects. My company just spent over $6000 on a plan for our small company, less than 10 employees. Hard hats, safety glasses, steel-toes boots,gloves, and safety vests are required on all jobs now.
Anyone working over six feet from the ground requires a safety harness and line.In China, they still use wooden scaffolding on buildings over ten stories high.
Safety has become an industry in B.C.
My Dad had 4 quotes for shingles on his roof.
Old Victorian style, steep and high.
3 quotes for $8000.00-$8500.00.
1 for $4000.00.
Since he was selling he took the lowest. They were the lowest because the idiots went up on that roof with no safety harness or ropes.
Idiots. 35-40 ft fall.
I watched, thought about calling occupational health, but just left.
However, the picture of the telephone line with the wire holding it up, that I can relate to.
Funny how you set the poles to hold the wire up, then the wire holds the poles up. Wonders never cease.
The best way to take advantage of a worker in Canada is to have the worker incorporate and then hire his company. His company is responsible for safety of its worker(self), CPP and worker’s comp premium payments for its workers and liabilty insurance(5-10 grand/annum for a mobile welding outfit). You pay him a little more than the union does then turn the screws. A single refusal to work is grounds for dismissal with no notice. This is why so many of Vince McMahon’s wrestlers are dead or crippled. They are all independent contractors.
where is the Harper chatter these days? I suppose fiddling while the world burns has caused you to resort to writing about forklift safety.
Turns out that all those things we said about Harper back in 2006 were true. He would spend his way into deficits, do nothing while the world burned and generally show his contempt for democracy.
No worries SDA, just keep shouting into your echo chamber.
One word…….Darwin.
I have been a contractor in California for 35 years. In the past 15 years the Mexicans have brought a whole new level of daring and imagination.
azphiks
Wrong about the safety stuff. The company and ultimately the Owner of the site is still held accountable for the safety of all sub-contractors on the worksite.
CNRL & Flint (I think) just had their butts handed to them because the Chinese sub erected some tanks in an unsafe manner.
German forklift safety video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CV64lW0CTwI
Don’t worry if you don’t understand German.
Stick with it for the Germanic conclusion.
Dmorris pretty well described what goes on in Ontario as well – annual safety meetings, paper trails a mile long, daily log books to cover your arse.
Soon we will make it a “perfect” world, on the backs of taxpayers because ultimately they are paying for all the rules and regulations, and it isn’t cheap.
“Hard hats, safety glasses, steel-toes boots,gloves, and safety vests are required on all jobs now.” dmorris at June 2, 2009 11:44 PM
Can’t be too safe I guess but aren’t you a (Dilbert style) software developer? The secretaries, errr… administrative assistants aren’t too impressed with the steel-toed high heels either. /nyuk, nyuk, nyuk.
Oh, and never hire a three-fingered carpenter.
Lots of evidence of widespread mental disorder there.
On the pic of the dedicated bicycle lanes in the middle of the highway… don’t give Mao Miller of T.O. any ideas.
The funny things about things like that is most of them are not examples of stupidity, but of high ingenuity in the face of moronic bureaucracy, inflexible rules and plans that make no sense. (and in many of those cases, buildings changing use over decades)
As to safety equipment, I’m all for it, having had a dropped hammer hit my hard hat square centre from 5 stories up and suffering nothing more than unpleasant startlement. But I am given to understand that the actual rate at which accidents happen on worksites has not actually changed much in 30+ years. The un-intended consequence of all the armour / lines / etc… is that people make more risks, trusting inthe safety gear.
Rick Sharp’s comment is spot on! But not perhaps as he intended. ‘Mexicans’ are thriving, while ‘whitey’? not so much. Weak and soft, struggling in a lawyer – dominated culture that inhibits innovation, risk taking and creativity, the decline and fall accelerates.
I’m surprised at you Kate – here you come across as one of ‘Them’. I have lived a long, accident inconsequential life in construction – many times doing things that make your photo look positively sane in comparison. Perhaps you are unaware that a big part of the fun is the pucker factor. Kinda like motorcycles, if you will.
Having followed the link, I had trouble closing the page. I kept getting asked if I really wanted to close the window. Maybe it’s just a personal quirk of mine, but I’m quickly irritated by anything that grabs hold of my computer and won’t let go. If SDA were my blog, which of course it isn’t, I wouldn’t link to any page that behaved that way. Just a suggestion, nothing more.
3 story building, painting the top of the -open- stairwell therefore teetering over a 4 story clear drop. The guy was leaning out in a full spread eagle to get the last little bit of the corner
20 foot ladder, fully extended about 1/2 way up the flight. One leg on a stair tread, the other leg on a paint can. Paint can was mostly on the next tread.
I didn’t stay to watch either.
Then again, I was famous for using a climbing rope and harness over big drops instead of $20k worth of rented scaffolding.
RSP – I had no problems with the page at all. It’s impossible for me to vet sites for all operating systems and browsers, so with any link, there is the potential of getting popups, etc. that I didn’t know existed.
Sorry for the inconvenience, though.
Yo Yo Yo..
Go Go Go.. home!!!
Worst thing I ever saw was a young Indian chap on a site without safety boots, stepping on a 4 inch nail that came right out the top of his foot.
Yeooowwchh!
Many years ago, the late lamented English magazine “Punch” publish a portfolio of cartoons on the theme of “Cowboy builders”, mocking many of the unsafe practices described here. My favourite showed one worker lying on the ground with a broken neck, as the other workers stood gaping at him, and the foreman hustling up: “All right, get back to work! What are you staring at? Never seen a perfect right angle before?”
Actually, my 2 construction favorites aren’t in this collection, but they deserve honorable mention in the “Not My Job” category:
here and here.
mhb
WARNING:
That 2nd pic above is on a web page that is neither kid or work friendly!!
I didn’t notice the image on the far left, and I’m rather certain it’s not typical of the “Images You’ll Also Enjoy”.
If you want to disable the 2nd link, I can repost, Kate.
Sorry about that.
mhb