This month’s interviewee, Rob Weiss, has taken an active role in crane safety, helping develop the new US federal crane rule, and speaking out against excessive and incoherent legislation.

He told me how a comment of his at an SC&RA meeting in 2008 led to the formation of an international working group on crane standards. The group’s first job has been to try to develop a consensus on the different approaches taken to the override key on mobile cranes, exemplified by the transatlantic row over the revised EU mobile crane standard, EN13000:2010.

Weiss is a good example of the sense of vocational duty common to the industry: individuals who don’t just think about cranes as their day job, but who devote substantial amounts of time and effort to developing new standards or advocating for responsible regulation. It doesn’t end there. Every year, organisations like the SC&RA, ESTA and CICA get together to develop new skills, share experiences, and build a common front in the fight for safe lifting. The actions they take with their members’ support, pushes the industry’s safety agenda forward.

As we talked about the work being done on EN13000:2010, Weiss raised one way EU owners and operators can play a part in developing standards.

Last year, the world crane experts group that Weiss played such an important role in setting up, came up with a consensus position on mobile crane override keys. Under the so-called ‘Amsterdam consensus’, operators would have access to an override key allowing them to use the crane at full speed even if the load limiter had been triggered, but would then have to reset the crane, using a switch outside the cab and a key held by a supervisor, before resuming normal operations. The Amsterdam consensus meets European concerns about misuse of the override key, and calms American fears that ops might be prevented from rapidly booming down in emergency situations.

While this position was agreed by some of the best minds in the industry, taking in both crane owners and manufacturers, when the FEM brought it to the EU for a proposed revision to EN13000:2010, it was rejected. Now, through ESTA and the FEM, owners and operators of post-EN13000:2010 cranes are being surveyed, to find out if they feel cranes built to the new standard are safer. The results will be used in a new approach to the EU.

You can download the survey at www.esta-eu.org. Take the time to consider the effect the new standard has on the safety of your crane operations. By taking part in this survey, you won’t just be helping regulators understand the effects of the revision to EN13000, you’ll be playing an important part in efforts to harmonise standards and allow a healthy transatlantic trade in used cranes.