Attitudes towards safety

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Nick,
I'm with the other old timers here. You come in here and tell us our methods are outdated and dangerous. You young, well trained climbers, out work us and do it safer. Change for us, at this point, is hard, so our value is diminished by you young whipper-snapers.
Then you come to the one place many of old hacks hang out and point at us and say, "you suck". Well, I don't like it, even if it is true.
And no, you can't teach an old dog new tricks, so we won't be working safer. Think how insulting it is to say we've been doing it wrong since you were a sperm. We know it's wrong, you don't gotta say it.:angry:
 
nice thread, the heat of battle. i wont rip nick, but those statistics which put us at the top of the danger zone also include loggers, which is another dangerous profession. so we have two dangerous professions lumped into one. maybe if cops and firemen were lumped into a public safety occupational hazzard they might beat us. dont know, dont care.
someone wisely made the point that the weekend warriors get lumped with us also. this is unfair to us professional, but until the government recognises a distinction between a professional arborist and someone who just "cuts trees" it will continue to happen.
our job is very dangerous by nature...heights, gas powered tools, saws, rigging, and all the other variables associated climbing on a living thing. You make a good point nick that we should have a culture of safety and we DO need to talk about safety. However the approach to safety will always contain elements of personnal choice. lets just recognize that tree climbing has a history and the guys who lived that history shouldnt be attacked for bringing everyone here to the future.
nick you are a proactive thinker searching for discussion and solutions and those qualities help this site out so dont leave it just because people disagree with you. this post you started has been one of the better ones
 
ohh and i forgot a quote to add to nick's "dangerous statement"
list...
"hey, you want to hit this joint?"
from another climber to me, years back on the second tree climb i ever did.
some companies a far worse than others.
i didnt hit the joint and didnt last long at that company.
 
You ain't kiddin'.

Most of the people who've been here awhile have heard my "story".

To give you the short version, it was co-workers like that settled me on starting my own company.

No, I don't want to hit your joint.
Yeah, you SHOULD tie it off.
No thanks, I'll have a beer when we're done.
Whaddaya mean "I dont' care"... it's YOUR company, ain't it?

I could go on, but you get the point.


There are some of us old-timers who know what rules are flexible. Then there are those climbers who are just lucky.

Sooner or later, luck runs out.

I think that was the gist of Nicks post.
 
An old - timer I worked with many years ago told me that for most climbers treework was 90% skill and 10% dumb-luck. An occassional few get by on a 80 - 20 split and so on down. I believe saftey and PPE is important but all the saftey gear and tie in points in the world will not prevent an accident if the operator has no common sense. I can appreciate and see some of the benefits from new techniques and advances in saftey gear but I do not agree with someone claiming that anyone that does not do it by the 'new book' is 100% wrong.
 
Nick, carry the message on, ring the bell to remind of safety brutha.

i don't think you need anyone reminding you of being in school; i think you have done plenty from that position alone; even extending to here. i guess i never said,that i thought all that alone is unique, not unic.............

Good Luck at graduation, as you go on; you will here some of these same things from people about safety etc. In terms of equal balance i seek moderation in some of these things like perhaps some of the other brethren.

Once again, if everything isn't just to my liking etc.; i find it easier to drift down or on; save though as i might hit flairing aggression. Then, when i've been told i don't have to read everything if i don't like it; just the tone catches me; i find it counter pro-ductive and pushy. i think it would be better to ignore a safety item rather than attacking the writer and asking that that be ignored if not liked. i think the lesser evil is to ignore the first instance, rather than escalate to a higher level and asked that that be ignored if distaste-full.

i think that the "Rocky Whore-er Picture Show" can be funny at some times, but grewsome other times. But i guess chainsaw movies are serious stuff!:blob2:

Next topic please?
:alien:
 
im going to stick up for Nick a bit with this post ..even though i realy dont like too much advice on health and safety from a young whip...but let me tell you Guys on here something , iv'e worked with more dangerous old timers ..than young new climbers ... a lot old timers me included seem to hate too much change even if it makes for better safer working conditions
 
Originally posted by arboromega
.
nick you are a proactive thinker searching for discussion and solutions and those qualities help this site out so dont leave it just because people disagree with you.

Ditto that
 
I have to agree with dayman, the statistics need to be reclassified. What I am saying is that a chipper accident is not an climbing accident, so if there are going to be people keeping track of all the accidents, PUT THEM IN THE PROPER COLUMN.

Don't any of you think that it is odd that when this sites page loads up that you can see the the "Arboriculture injuries & fatalities" forum right off the bat. I am always sickened when I see the box highlighted with the yellow check mark. Then when I read of the incident, I am, more often than not, PO'ed to see another ground accident has happened. These people on the ground are as valuable as the ones in the tree, and we must look after them. MB's list of how to be a ground man is a must for all crews. I will even bet that most tree related accidents are, as Nick says, a result of taking avoidable risks. However, Nick tends to forget that we ALL want to go home at the end of the day and spend our hard earned money.

I am also happy that Rocky has found a ground guy with a pHd in common sense, and if he ever wants to lend him out for a week I will show him some of the "not so white" northern country.
 
Hey Spyder, the post hole digger, is a hole different line of occupation, why would you want to dig a water well under a tree you are working on???:D

Besides my ground person may have to develop a whole new set of muscles to run a post-hole auger!:p
 
Originally posted by Mike Maas
Then you come to the one place many of old hacks hang out and point at us and say, "you suck". Well, I don't like it, even if it is true.
And no, you can't teach an old dog new tricks, so we won't be working safer.

We know it's wrong, you don't gotta say it.:angry:

LMAO Mike.

On a serious note, it is sad to think that you can't teach an old dog new tricks. That is to imply that climbers using unsafe out dated methods are stuck in a rut. The only difference between a rut and a grave is the depth.

.02

BTW, I though Nick was more than a whippersnapper, isn't this what he grew up doing?www.crawfordtree.com
 
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How's this for safety? What do you do when someone refuses to listen to reason? I guess you just keep trying. I took this picture to show the ground man how he is playing with his life. I'm almost positive that he'll do it again anyway.:mad:
 
Well, for what it's worth, Nick is mostly (not absolutely) right, as has even been acknowledged by old hack MM. It doesn't take great age to see these things. On the other hand, presenting your view in a diplomatic manner is one of those things that seems to be difficult for younger folks to manage, so I'll cut Nick some slack on that one. Not that I'm a whole lot older than he is. :p

So, Nick, for future reference, address others with a respectful tone (even if you don't respect them), and you will be more likely to get a more respectful response. It is from that point that constructive dialogue can begin. Trust me, I speak from experience. ;)

As for the danger stats on arborists: I believe it was in Arborist News a couple of months ago that I read that arborists are NOT lumped in with loggers. Instead we're lumped in with landscapers and such. However, if you break down the stats further we still come in as 5th most dangerous job. That's just off the top of my head though, and my memory may not be fully accurate. Couldn't find the magazine, unfortunately.
 
Originally posted by rumination
So, Nick, for future reference, address others with a respectful tone (even if you don't respect them), and you will be more likely to get a more respectful response. It is from that point that constructive dialogue can begin. Trust me, I speak from experience. ;)
Your points are well taken. And not being able to use body language and voice inflections when communicating makes it even harder. My point was not to lambast any particular person or group of people but to list some of the things that I've heard over the years on a tree crew and to share how that really bothered me. So I'm an aging whippersnapper.

I would imagine that other industries also have problems with accidents getting lumped together, but I don't have any experience with that. But climbers usually haul some brush in the course of the day, too - I'm sure many others here clean their own messes.

Believe me, I know what the people on this board are like, and I know what posts will bring a lot of responses - or a least learning what will. I know that the people here are far above the average in safety and knowledge which is why I thought people would understand and agree instead of take offense because I'm not pointing fingers at people here. I mean, I have 4 fingers pointing right back at me whenever I do that.

Safety is not a liability issue or a legal issue to me. It's a personal issue and a cause that I want to promote. To me, safety should be a topic at the forefront, and it usually is in these and other educated discussions. For example, someone asks about tautline vs. blake's vs. distal vs. swabish, etc. The responses often include comments about one being more likely to roll out versus the other, one being less likely to become a suic-slide knot, etc.

Netree touched on this, but it's the people that I've worked with myself who do dangerous things even though they go to the conferences and see fellow climbers using safer techniques. I'm just now switching to an advanced hitch, so I'm not at the forefront of any technology myself. I'm just commenting. I'm sorry if anyone is offended, I didn't intend to attack.
 
... see, it's different this time. Now go back to what you want to have happen out of your intent. And put it forward again.

Jack
 
attitude

Lighten up Nick. Safety is a way of living longer and it's a good thing but I don't want tree work to be so over regulated it is not fun anymore. The guys that are good at this and have a career of it will work safe or die young. They know it's dangerous work.
You are always going to have the guys that work safe and live long and then there will be the others that are going to be idiots no matter what they do for a living.
 
Re: attitude

Originally posted by geofore
You are always going to have the guys that work safe and live long and then there will be the others that are going to be idiots no matter what they do for a living.
Sure, but we're (thankfully) not behind desks at cubicles with the greatest risk being a papercut or an abrasion from desktop impropriety.
 


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