As we report this month, the concerns of government safety authorities has prompted the development of a new safety system that is expected to require data loggers in 2009-model ATs and truck cranes used in Europe.

The data loggers will be recording how often the crane is overloaded, among other things. In the event of an accident, the data recorded by the logger would be submitted to the government’s safety inspectors.

I think that the time has come, indeed is overdue, for this kind of technology.

Of course private cars have no kind of data recorders. But cranes have more in common with articulated lorries – big, specialist vehicles used for business. And the regulation of cranes is far behind that of lorries, which have been fitted with data loggers – tachographs – since the early 1980s. These record the lorry’s speed and total driver hours. Over the past few years, tachographs have evolved, and last month, every new lorry in Europe was required to be fitted with a digital tachograph. These can track different operators’ hours with different smart cards for each operator, and print out a weekly report. I think crane operators should be equally proud of their work, or, at least, accountable for it.

Data loggers should also help even out competition in the market place. With a data logger, and a system of recording and inspecting them, cowboys will find it more difficult to regularly overload their cranes. That means that they will find it harder to send out an underspecced crane for a job and undercut the competition. Crane rental companies will be forced to compete on the same terms. That is good news for everyone.