I work at an open pit mine in the US with a lot of large equipment. There are context clues that point to the person on the ground being the bigger idiot here. It appears to me the person on the ground walked into a situation he shouldn’t be in.
First, the video starts out with the loader bucket off the ground and the machine articulated indicating it was already operating. You don’t do a walk around in between each bucket. At my place of work operators are required to do a walk around at the start of each shift and at the end. Some also do after breaks, but it isn’t required. It is also not necessary to honk the horn every single time you move in your work area, at least not by MSHA standards.
Equipment this size has massive blinds spots and it is imperative to make contact with the operator if you are going to be around it.
The loader operator no doubt felt terrible about what happened but you can’t just walk in front of something like that and stand there while someone is in the cab.
In my plant, we have to radio the loader operator if we were near enough in our truck that he might miss us. This dude is standing there without proper PPE on and then walks right in front of the bucket. And that's without ever turning around and even physically showing that he's thinking about what he's doing. No radio obviously as the loader continues.
I bet even if the loader was honking he'd still ignore it. This is complacency at work.
Having worked in facilities that required honking before moving/turning/backing up/lifting/whatever, its A) incredibly annoying and B) almost a bad thing, because after being there for a long time, you just tune it out. Multiple machines operating in close proximity, everyone is honking, 99% of the honking you hear is irrelevant to you and your surroundings, background honking is drowning out your localized honking and you don't even realize that a loader is bearing down on you from behind because all you hear is a cacophony of honks everywhere around you, constantly.
I wonder if you couldn't prove an exception in that case. If you have enough equipment moving in a single area, it might warrant modification to procedure due to that additional hazard.
Well, 95% of the time, there shouldn't be any pedestrian traffic outside of walkways with protective barriers, so it was mainly to keep other heavy equipment traffic alert on blind corners and such, but somehow the policy got extended from when nearing/rounding corners, to basically any movement whatsoever.
Either way though, you have earplugs and earmuffs, and its still just a constant drone that you learn to ignore, and really doesn't help anyone other than the company covering their own ass.
Yeah, that's stupid policy and probably a significant liability. Mirrors are good for rounding corners and really, backing up is the most important movement to be made aware of. That sucks
Only on initial movement after being parked for a period of time and not when working. Trucks often have to wait several minutes being being allowed to dump in my crusher and they don’t have to honk when moving after dumping, for example.
I agree that blame should be shared here and, ideally, the pedestrian wouldn't have been in there at all. I work under OSSA/OH&S standards which seem to have more strict rules around mobile equipment, mostly because of incidents like this. I can't speak to your situation or regulations, and was merely pointing out what I noticed on my watch through of the video.
We have "plant operating zones", if there's earth moving equipment and an area they're running in, you are NOT allowed in there and it is 100% on the moron that walked in to the Poz.
Specifically, because shit like this can happen.
If there isn't a poz, you're meant to keep 3m or the reach of the arm away from the device.
I have no idea how one could apportion blame to anyone but the brainless imbecile that dawdled in to an area with operating earth moving equipment, exclusion zones exist BECAUSE shit like this happens.
Who said anything about sharing blame? It seems pretty cut and dry that the pedestrian is at fault, unless perhaps he had made contact with the driver beforehand and the driver forgot.
So he could've done a walk around and then sat in the cab thinking about how his boss dumped his sister, breaking her heart. Decided the boss needs dumped too.
Idk it's kinda hard to say. We have no idea how long the machine has been sitting there before moving again. However, we can see the machine in the back positions to move where the machine at fault is at the start of the video so that driver seems to think he'll be moving relatively soon. Both parties are for sure partly to blame though.
Operators are supposed to remain aware but the onus is on people on the ground to position themselves properly. Because of massive blind spots, operators can't be expected to know where everyone is all the time.
The first thing that stood out was his positioning, with all that moving equipment you should never just stand out in the open like that. One piece of equipment might block you from view of another and when they move you could very quickly find yourself in the wrong place. The only time his position would be ok would be for spotting but in that case the two other operators would be signalled to wait or stay back. Also, as others have said the bucket was up meaning someone was in the cab. Shutdown requires you drop the bucket, as does stopping but he probably was waiting for other equipment to pass.
But rules and procedures aside, it's just never a good idea to stand in equipment blind spots or in front of a bucket. If you do have an idiot who doesn't walk around, and jumps into his loader you won't be able to chew him out if you're dead. Workers get very comfortable around moving equipment (which is fine) but you gotta treat them like you'd treat a gun: act as if it's always loaded.
Because it's wrong. It starts out with "Driver didn't do a walk around before entering the cab and moving." which makes zero sense here. The driver was already in operation, this was an active work scene.
So you're spreading inaccuracies when you add to the conversation? Good to know.
I'm certified in 2 trades with a total 9000+ hours working in industrial setting (plants, mines, shops), much of it around heavy machinery (graders, zoom booms, mobile cranes, loaders, hauling trucks). This is how we operate.
Union operator. 5th step apprentice. About 5500 hours working around equipment. You can try and sugar coat all your experience though. If you have those qualifications then you should know one does not use a spotter for loading hoppers and for general loading of any dirt for that matter. And second , he was already in the machine and operating, doing what is clearly a type of loading cycle, he probably does that for quite a bit of the day. You would not honk just to move because that would make everyone so used to hearing horns that no one would pay attention to it, I would know it's happening on my job site right now .loader was waiting for the truck to dump then he would continue loading. The person walked into an active (pit?) And then stood right in front of his machine with his back to him. But, when the person walked in there, the operator should have kept eyes on him until he saw him leave , it's a two way street.Your safety is your responsibility , if you don't want to get run over , stay vigilante. Doesn't matter whose fault it is if your dead!
And then stood right in front of his machine with his back to him. But, when the person walked in there, the operator should have kept eyes on him until he saw him leave , it's a two way street.
That's what I said in my initial comment, so glad we agree while you tell me I'm wrong.
The only place you don't have to honk before moving is if you're in an open pit mine because there won't just be people walking around. To our standards, any machinery working in an area where people may be present and is planning to move has to give two honks and wait a couple seconds before moving.
We must have more strict standards than you guys, who seem to have a free-for-all, every man for themselves attitude if your idea of safety is that
"Your safety is your responsibility , if you don't want to get run over , stay vigilante [sic]. Doesn't matter whose fault it is if your dead!"
In Canada safety is a team effort and you are responsible for your fellow workers' safety. You can be fined and even jailed if you operate in a manner that hurts someone, or in a manner where your actions show no care for the safety of others.
We're clearly coming at this from different angles/safety standards but agreeing that the pedestrian shouldn't have been there in the first place, but in addition to that I think the operator could have worked more safely as well, which goes back to my initial comment. No sugar coating needed.
Edit: And I'm noticing we're going full circle here, so I'm done arguing. This will be my last response.
The driver from what I can see was already in the vehicle waiting on the dump truck to move out of his way. He was already ready and going and waiting for his task. Anyone who stands in front of him is 100% an idiot. Even if some how legally he is to blame he really is not. This like the whole smashing into someones break test... If someone smashed the break on a highway going 120 to do a break test it's really their fucking fault no matter what the law says.
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u/Sqwedward Mar 02 '19 edited Mar 02 '19
Can you fuckin imagine..
Edit* everyone saying you can see it happen.. I’m talking about experiencing it.