OT (sort of) Do you know how to climb a ladder?

It's a wonder anything gets done:

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Lizzy

Reply to
Lizzy Taylor
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Having met some council manual workers when I was trying to get a lane cleared in Berkshire, I'm not so sure they don't need a "finding arse with both hands" course....

Reply to
Ian Rawlings

blame our wonderful claim to gain lawyers...... "I fell off a ladder because I had no formal training, and was told to do this job which required a ladder"

-- "For those who are missing Blair - aim more carefully."

To reply direct rot13 me

bURRt the 101 Camper

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200TDi Disco with rotten floor 200 TDi DIsco, "the offroader" 1976 S3 Lightweight
Reply to
Simon Isaacs

I blame the Yanks.

Still, it's disheartening to see that the trend's coming over.

Geo

Reply to
Geo

Given how thick some people are, it's probably best that they get hand-held to be honest!

Having said that, it's similar to something like winching a vehicle, to the uninitiated it looks dead easy, clap the cable on and hit the "pull" button, in practice there's lots of things you need to watch out for that aren't always obvious.

Ditto "off-roading" is dead easy, it's just like driving on the road, innit!

Here's an example of one that's not that easy to spot;

"During refurbishment of a warehouse a contractor placed a wooden leaning ladder between two stands of pallet racking. The ladder was leaning at an angle of 45 degrees with the top against one rack and the bottom against another, to stop it from slipping. The ladder broke under the user's weight, causing him to fall to the ground and fracture his skull."

Propped safely, but it being at 45 degrees meant that it couldn't hold his weight, so it broke. Not that obvious without hindsight, although I'm sure everyone in this thread spotted the problem *instantly*...... (yeah right)

Here's the three ladder use guides for those who want to see what I'm sure *everyone here* knew from birth, without needing to be taught ;-)

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Reply to
Ian Rawlings

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Bloody ridiculous. You *don't* need a day long course to use a winch (5 mins sound advice is all you'll ever need), you *don't* need training to drive off-road ( 5 mins sound advice and a bit of practice in company) and you certainly don't need training to use a ladder (5 mins sound advice is all you'll ever need unless you fancy steeple- jacking). All this tosh has been created by lawyers for their own ends, and people in non-jobs trying to justify their (inflated) salaries. All this nonsense could be got rid of by passing a simple, one line law - "If you don't know how to do it - don't. If you do it anyway, that's your problem. If someone forces you to do it in any way, they are responsible." - also known as common sense - which is what the lawyers should be using rather than eyeing their bank accounts. As for "training" on offer - here's a nice little question - why should you place a "blanket" over a winch line? The *real* answer (now lost in the mists of time due to "experts" talking bollocks), is:

So people can see the cable is there and not trip over it! This tosh about stopping whip is just that - whats the odds of the cable snapping at the point the blanket is? Will it make *any* difference to the speed of the cable ends? What actually happens when a winch cable snaps? It drops to the floor - *unless* it's being snatched - which it's not desinged to do. Information supplied by the Royal Navy

- who have one or two years experience winching things.

Sorry to rant, but I'm sick and tired of self-appointed experts selling their "knowledge", having themesleves been self-taught.

Richard

Reply to
BeamEnds

Rubbish. There's a lot involved in anything other than just the basic straight pull, and all the gear involved, there are lots of little nuances, e.g. the wire ropes used with things like tirfors shouldn't be used with normal pulleys due to their lower resistance to being curved and bent. 5 minute's sound advice is *not* enough for a novice. 5 minutes will show a novice how to winch a truck across flat tarmac.

More rubbish! From novice to safe driver in 5 minutes my arse!

More rubbish. Welcome back ;-)

You are on fine form!

Training is about showing someone how to do it. If everyone who didn't know how to do something never learned and didn't do it, then skills would die out within a generation.

So you can see the line, it's not "lost", it's common knowledge.

Ah yes because education and training is a newfangled invention created by men in suits and lawyers!

Experience is all well and good, but it's best to find out what's going to break your bones by means other than direct experience..

Reply to
Ian Rawlings

So these people putting up the signs can't because they don't know how to use a ladder, no one has shown them.

That is fair enough, people ought to take responsibility for the own actions and not try an blame anybody but themselves. The few times I've filled in an Accident Report Form the question "How would you prevent the incident in the future? is normally answered "By not being so bloody stupid".

So going back to these sign erecters they must be trained in the safe use of ladders, otherwise the employer is *totaly* liable, even for the most idiotic action of an employee.

Reply to
Dave Liquorice

"BeamEnds" wrote............

Have you ever used a winch? Have you ever seen a steel cable on a winch let go from from the vehicle you are winching because of the botched up job someones made of the recovery points which you can't really test at the time? All steel cables have a certain amount of elasticity and can certainly cause damage when they let go for whatever reason especially when the load is high and there's someone's jate ring hung on the end.

You are the one talking bollocks. Why should the cable break in the middle where the blanket is? There's not much likelyhood of that, nor is the cable going to break at both ends at the same time. And if the cable lets go at one end a blanket in the middle will limit the cable travel to between the recovery and recovered vehicles. And you won't usually find anyone stupid enough to stand between these points, or would you?

There's no substitute for hands on experience, but as far as self -appointed experts go you don't *have* to listen, but you may learn something.

I've done plenty of winching and I don't consider myself an 'expert' but I'm always willing to learn from someone more experienced to help avoid accidents and injury.

Martin

Reply to
Oily

On the blanket thing I reckon Rich is right, personally I don't see how just a blanket is going to help a steel cable that's whipping back after a breakage of cable or mount. It does make it easy to see though so people know to keep away.

Reply to
Ian Rawlings

Do a test if you can't understand what happens. Put a winch cable under load with an open shackle that will let go and try it with and without a blanket. It's the *weight* of the blanket that damps the inertia of the cable. Times I haven't had a blanket etc I've just raised the bonnet to protect the windscreen just in case.

Martin

Reply to
Oily

Does 30 years in the forestry industry count as experience? I started skidding and have had to recover all sorts of vehicles up to 44 tonne lorries.

Am I self appointed now that NPTC retired me?

Always willing to learn but I'm with Richard on wire rope breakages, I've not seen a modern, rope cored wire rope do anything other than drop on breaking *if* directly attached. The problem comes with extensible synthetic ropes being put in the system. It doesn't need to be a winched pull either, IIRC a young National Trust volunteer was killed when a stick was thrown over a branch as a weight on the end of a line, it jammed and was dislodged by the volunteers pulling the line, the extension of the rope stored enough energy to cause mortal injury to the chap when it came free.

For a good story about kinetic ropes recovering tracked armoured vehicles a denizen from uk.D-I-Y has a tale.

AJH

Reply to
AJH

Not with small diameter winch ropes, they don't just drop like those 2" cables used to recover the sort of vehicles you're talking about.

Don't know about that, it wasn't my statement.

So I take it you've never had the pleasure of seeing a small diameter, directly attached steel cable nearly take some poor sods head off, well I have so I will continue to take every available precaution in the interests of safety and my peace of mind when there are other people about who may or may not be aware of the dangers. As I said, just for my peace of mind. That's all, it doesn't take a minute.

Martin

Reply to
Oily

Jesus H man, what's your blanket made of, lead? :-)

I've seen the kind of damage a snapping wire rope can do (thankfully not first-hand), and no blanket's going to tame that!!

Reply to
Ian Rawlings

It's not the weight of the blanket, it's the increased wind resistance it gives to the flailing rope that does the job of slowing the rope significantly. Practical experience tells me it's far more of a feel good solution than a real safety gain though.

Reply to
EMB

It may be another urban myth, but there was a story that the Navy tested three wire ropes to destruction on a dockside, to see what would happen when they did break. Two just broke and dropped, the third whipped and cleared the dock of everything moveable that was within range of the rope.

Gordon

Reply to
gordon

Actually I'd guess most skidding is done with 13mm ropes.

Nope, because no one should be within the envelope where the rope can reach other than the operator.

Okay, I did not say sensible precautions shouldn't be taken and I did not criticise any of the precautions suggested.

Winches are rated for their line pull, the wire rope has a rated working load which is half its proof load, this proof load is aimed to be about half the breaking strain from tests on similar rope, so the first safety point is that the rope should not break. My comment was about when I have experienced rope breaking and that it invariable fell dead. The reason I have experienced ropes breaking is because I used them in a non critical, non lifting, situation where wear and tear was high. Recovery is a critical, often dangerous, manoeuvre and I would expect the gear to be better maintained for that purpose. My further point was that where I have witnessed whipping it has been when demonstrating the dangers inherent in using man made energy absorbing rope.

AJH

Reply to
AJH

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Derek

Reply to
Derek

"AJH" wrote........

Nah........ bald tyres I reckon. :-)

People wander about all over the place, most of them usually completely ignorant of the dangers, you've got to be doubly careful.

You've obviously done a lot more winching recovery work than me, and I've done quite a bit over the years, but I wasn't concerned about the actual rope breaking, I've never managed that, but more the crap recovery points that sometimes let go on offroaders and come whistling past your ear still fastened to the end of the rope. I've secured to the axle or chassis sometimes because I didn't trust the attachment provided. I've twice had someone's complete bullbar and spots come away from the front but only because I didn't check it as it was under water or deep mud and I thought I'm not wading in up to my armpits, they put it in there. :-)

Martin

Reply to
Oily

Hey, don't knock the 'safety training' culture of today -- for some of us it's a nice little earner! (Note, this is being written whilst grinning!)

One of my hats is safety induction video presentation. I was recently asked by a client (for whom I've done a number of industrial plant inductions) to prepare one for staff and visitors to their headquarters office. At one point I actually had to demonstrate the safe way to walk up and down stairs!

Hang on a minute -- no-one trained ME in A-level Stair Walking, so how did I know the correct way? Simple -- I just used plain, simple, Mk1 Common Sense.

But I must admit that after once using the RR Classic (back on topic!) to assist a 16-wheeler who'd stalled on a notorious steep bend near here, and suddenly becoming aware of what would happen to my rear window if the tow strap shackle parted from his hitch point, there IS a bit of difference between winching and stair walking.

GRAEME ALDOUS, Yorkshire

Reply to
Teeafit

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