Got flagged for a safety violation on a job site in Phoenix last month

I was running a Grove RT650E on a commercial build near downtown Phoenix and the spotter kept giving me mixed hand signals. I stopped the lift twice to clarify and he got all huffy about it. Then the general contractor comes over and tells me I'm getting written up for "excessive stops" during a critical pick. I told him flat out that I'd rather take a write up than drop a load on someone. We ended up having a whole sit down about communication protocols and I learned that the spotter was brand new and had never worked with a crane crew before. Now I always ask to see the spotter's certification card before we start a job. Has anyone else had issues with inexperienced spotters causing problems on site?

3 comments

3 Comments

river_allen22d ago

Did the foreman make the spotter get any actual training after that, or just let him keep signalling?

the_anthony22d ago

I read on a construction safety forum that some states actually require a certified signal person course now, but a lot of small crews just ignore it and wing it. Sounds like that foreman was probably one of those guys who thinks OSHA is just a suggestion.

sarah_patel2522d ago

The one time I had a spotter who didn't know his left from his right, I asked @river_allen if he'd ever run into that. He said to just keep the load low and move slow, which is good advice, but also kind of funny because I was already doing that. The foreman on my job just shrugged and said the guy was "learning on the job," which is a nice way of saying someone could get hurt. I can still picture that poor spotter waving his arms like he was trying to direct a plane, while the crane operator and I just stared at each other. It ended up taking twice as long as it should have, but at least nobody got squashed.