16.01.2014

Another sign job

Spotted by a reader in the UK today, a man using a truck mounted lift to reach some signs at the entrance to Trafford retail Park shopping centre near Manchester.
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Sitting on a corner at a junction - no attempt to warn traffic

The man has pulled his self-drive truck mounted lift up close to the job, but is half blocking the road with no attempt to cordon off or warn traffic. The outriggers are set up with two on the pavement/sidewalk and two in the road with no outrigger mats/spreader plates. It also looks like our man is not wearing a harness.
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No cones, no outrigger mats, no harness

A definite one for our Death Wish series.

We covered an earlier incident on this site showing other working on the sign, with men working from an unusual looking platform suspended from a loader crane.

In the words of our reader who spotted this today and who also saw the earlier work: “A truck mounted platform blocking a road, roundabout and pavement with the operator not wearing a safety harness, accompanying van on double yellow lines and pedestrians walking under the boom...
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Right machine but lots of bad practice

“Which is safer this or…….. A crane with a rated man basket, being used in a scenario where there were no suitable powered access platforms. Fully equipped with harnesses and other relevant PPE, operating on a barriered area of site with an approved method statement from the contractor.”
“Sadly, it shows that often the easiest solution (renting a platform) affords the operator the easy way out of the rest of the H&S requirements. Pull up, go up, leave…..”

In our opinion neither is best practice but clearly this latest example is riskier than the suspended platform, if one assumes that all the lifting connections on the suspended platform will not fail. Odds are against today’s example.
Perhaps it will be third time right?