In a hotel room across the street from a live construction site, I watched a control screen that monitored crane functions, symbolised by either a green light (all go) or a red light (a problem has stopped the crane).
All of a sudden, three lights went red. The system stopped these cranes because they nearly collided. I rushed to the hotel room balcony and saw the cranes’ momentary pause for myself. Then the topmost crane boom slewed away, and work resumed.
This completely unplanned real life demo made me wonder how tower crane workers can possibly work without anti-collision—they need eyes in the back of their head to watch the other tower, and the load.
I wonder how often such systems, when fitted, activate to stop collisions. I asked the manufacturer that question, but was told that there was no log of this incident, because nothing had happened.
In a limited sense, this is absolutely true. The system worked as it is supposed to, and the cranes did not collide. There was no crane accident, only a brief blip in site productivity, thanks to the system.
But I was surprised, and a little disappointed, to hear such an attitude. Because to me, what happened was effectively a near miss. The cranes would have collided if the system did not act to prevent it. And I think site crane managers should know if operators are regularly relying on the system to stop collisions, which are, after all, preventable.
I suspect that there is a convenient conspiracy operating here. I admire those safety-orientated companies who have paid for such a system. But I think that they are worried that if they record how many times the system activates, a jumpy safety officer would want to punish them. And the anti-collision system supplier is only too happy to oblige by removing this feature. The consequence is that vital safety information simply isn’t being recorded.
I am not so interested in discussing whether software suppliers should include a particular feature or not. But let’s agree first that something did happen.
