Overheard a foreman say load charts are just 'suggestions' and it rattled me

I was grabbing coffee near a job site in Cleveland last Tuesday and heard this foreman tell a green operator that load charts are more like guidelines than hard rules. Said he'd been running cranes for 20 years and never followed them to the letter. I had to bite my tongue because in my experience, ignoring a load chart is how you end up with a tipped crane or a snapped cable. I've been operating for about 12 years now and I've seen what happens when people guess instead of looking at the numbers. A buddy of mine in Pittsburgh had a close call last year because he thought he could squeeze an extra 500 pounds on a 30 ton rig. The safety guys shut the site down for two weeks after that. Has anyone else run into operators who treat load charts like optional reading?

2 comments

2 Comments

amyh1210d ago

Load charts aren't suggestions, that's how people end up dead.

the_eric10d ago

Man, I don't know. People fudge load charts all the time and it's usually fine. It's more like a guideline for worst case scenarios. If you're on flat ground and your machine is in good shape, you've got some wiggle room. The real danger is when people don't understand why those limits exist in the first place.