One of the country’s largest plant hire companies have been fined £100,000 after admitting flouting health and safety rules which left a crane driver with crippling injuries. At NAHETS Safety is our primary concern.
John Young suffered severe spinal injuries after the cab of the crane fell through the air and crashed onto the roof of the Croydon Park Hotel on June 2, 2007.
He has been left unable to return to work more than two years after the tragedy.
Passers-by reported watching the crane’s arm topple backwards 200 feet in the air and break free from its base before crashing onto the roof of the neighbouring hotel.
Firefighters who helped rescue the injured driver from the wreckage described it as “one of the biggest disasters in Croydon since the Second World War.”
The crane was building the Altitude 25 apartment block for Howard Holdings when the accident happened at around 2.20pm.
Three other workers were left stranded on the top of the crane’s base for five hours as firefighters from Croydon fire station launched a massive rescue operation.
Select Plant Hire Company Ltd, based in Dartford, Kent, admitted breaching regulation 9(2) (b) and 8(1) of the Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations 1998; regulation 9(2) of the Provision and use of work Equipment Regulations 1998 and; section 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974.
As well as the fine, the company was ordered £15 victim surcharge and the costs were £33,196.
Judge Anthony Morris said: “The defendant company created a very significant risk of an accident occurring. In addition when part of a crane falls to the ground, the possibility of death or serious injury is extremely high.”
The National Association of Heavy Equipment Training Schools (NAHETS) appeared in the September edition of Mining Magazine. The article focuses on the use of various training simulators in the mining and heavy equipment industries; e.g., computer-based training, visualization, and advanced equipment simulators. These simulators improve safety and operating skills by successfully representing the characteristics and behaviors of various equipment types. Vista Training, Inc. and its cooperative, Simlog, are leading providers of the various simulators. All of the NAHETS campuses use simulators as part of their heavy equipment training programs. You can view the article in Mining Magazine…(pp.94-97).
Save on Construction Equipment just announced the launch of its new website, saveonheavyequipment.com. The new site, powered by Ebay, is to offer “pre-owned heavy equipment, available online for discount prices.” Users can bid on heavy equipment regularly (Backhoe Loaders, Crawler Dozers & Loaders, Trailers, Asphalt & Concrete Pavers, Lifts, Graders, Cranes, Excavators, Wheel Loaders, Stump Grinders, Wood Chippers, etc.). In addition, there are also attachments, parts, and even manuals available to buy. There is the “bid option” and also a “buy now” option for some of the products. Click here for the original press release.
Although online auctions may not appear to be the best way to sell/purchase heavy equipment and parts, some have found it efficient and had good success. The city of Cottage Grove, MN has found that they get better trade in value through selling used equipment on Ebay than through local auctions. The city management analyst, Brian Voelker, states that they can get 200-300 users from across the United States by listing items on Ebay, compared to roughly 20 users at local auctions. Click here for the full story.
With e-commerce steadily increasing across the globe, it is vital for businesses to offer products and services online, even in the heavy equipment industry. With sites such as Save on Heavy Equipment, as well as others, you might just find the equipments or attachments you are looking for–at a competitive price!
NAHETS membership in ANSI (American National Standards Institute) is the next step in strengthening it’s position as a leader in heavy equipment operator training, assessment and certification. Participation in ANSI activities will provide international as well as national recognition of NAHETS standards.
These organizations joined a federation that represents more than 125,000 companies and well over 3.5 million professionals. Under the Institute’s umbrella, this diverse constituency works together to strengthen the competitiveness of businesses operating in the global marketplace and to improve the quality of life for all citizens by developing, implementing, and promulgating voluntary consensus standards and related conformance assessment systems.
“Active participation in ANSI and its programs can serve as both a strategic and tangible asset for an organization,” said Brian Meincke, the Institute’s director of membership development. “Not only will they gain access to information and business intelligence that is not available elsewhere, but they will also receive discounts on many products and services. Equally important, they can build relationships that empower them with a voice and influence over the standardization and conformity assessment decisions that directly affect their business.
In the small city of Fort St. John, British Columbia, Canada Project Heavy Duty takes place every year during February and March. As hundreds of students find themselves graduated from high school they turn their eyes toward post-secondary education and careers; but some graduates remain unsure of the education and careers they will pursue. Project Heavy Duty helps students answer questions such as, “What am I going to do for the rest of my life….”
Project Heavy Duty is an annual exposure program that helps timid high school students gain confidence through heavy equipment operating. Each year a group of roughly 20 students train for a week with competent heavy equipment operators and contractors. They do things like plowing, excavating, and laying pipeline on an actual industrial site. The project has been running for seven years now and is a volunteer program.
One of the important things that this program does for students is not just learning how to operate heavy equipment, but as Organizer Richard Coupe said, many students confirm their career goals and others realize that their aspirations may be in another field altogether. Either way, Project Heavy Duty has been helping students for the last seven years to make one of the most important decisions of their lives–what to do with the rest of their lives.
May 2008–NAHETS Director of Operations, Mike Martens, has made his second trip to Estonia to adviseand assist the Ministry of Education with its project to improve the heavy equipment operator training program at the Paide Vocational Secondary School (PKK). The Paide school is beginning a phase in which the Estonian government will commit $30 million (USD) towards expansion and modernization of curriculum and facilities.
In addition to this project, Ministry Counselor Erkki Pissang has begun an initiative to establish the Paide school as a heavy equipment operator training center for the Baltic countries. Students would come from not only Estonia but also the countries of Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Denmark, Sweden and Finland. NAHETS is assisting with this regional training center initiative.
Rein Oslein, Director of the Paide Vocational Secondary School, is also working with various governmental agencies to upgrade Estonia’s operator certification standards based on NAHETS operator certification standards.
Mike’s time in Estonia was divided into meetings with Rein at the Paide school, at which time the framework for the regional training center was developed, and they began to define the heavy equipment operator certification standards.
Rein and Mike also met with the Head of the Estonian Vocational and Adult Education Department, Andres Pung, and with Siim Raie, The Executive Director of the Estonian Chamber of Commerce. Siim is working with Rein to develop contacts within the Estonian construction industry.
Those meetings were held in Tallinn, the capital of Estonia. Tallinn is a city with a history dating back to the 12th century; Old Town Tallin is the best-preserved example of a medieval Hanseatic League city
The next event is a Baltic Regional Conference, to be hosted by the Estonian Government, at which the education and industry attendees will work towards participation in the Estonian Heavy Equipment Operator Training Center in Paide.
All of us have seen the “yellow metal” on the road side while driving to work, but many of us do not know exactly what those machines are capable of doing, let alone know how to operate them. Sure we know that a backhoe can move dirt around and dig holes. Surely it can’t be that hard to get in a backhoe and just drive it around. But the matter of fact is that you don’t use a backhoe just to drive it around; you use a backhoe to operate it, and that may take more skill and experience than one may think . . . and surely there is more to a backhoe besides just moving dirt around…
To illustrate what it takes to be a true heavy equipment operator on a daily basis, we’ll take a look at a video hot tip from a NAHETS online industry resource–Yellow Metal TV. In response to an actual question from a heavy equipment operator in Wisconsin, Blake Vernon–Heavy Equipment Instructor for the Nevada School of Construction (NVSC)–takes us through a specific scenario on how to jump a ditch with a backhoe while a form board is already in place . . .
