It is now 15 years since Cranes & Access first published a feature highlighting these issues, following a spate of crane and work platform incidents - some of which were fatal - caused purely by the absence of mats or spreader plates when working on ground that was clearly suspect.
Since then awareness has grown and an increasing number of companies take the issue very seriously, to the point where an entire industry has developed, offering a vast array of products all designed to enable heavy equipment to work on or drive over soft or sensitive ground. But has it made any difference? Looking at the number of incidents reported on the lifting news website Vertikal.net you would be forgiven for thinking not. There are still a significant number of crane and platform overturns caused by either a lack of ground preparation or the absence of mats to spread the point loadings generated by outrigger jacks, heavily loaded wheels or tracks. It seems that there is still a long, long way to go before the problem is eradicated.
The use of outrigger mats and spreader plates has increased exponentially - particularly in Europe - and anecdotal evidence would suggest that the number of incidents resulting from outrigger setup issues has decreased, while rental companies are more than happy to supply mats with their machines. Certainly more people are aware of the problem, and it can be argued that the continuing high number of incident reports, owes more to the ease of reporting, thanks to the spread of the internet and arrival of a camera in everyone’s pocket in the form of a mobile phone, than an absence of progress.
Easy to avoid
So why are we still seeing so many overturns that could so easily have been avoided?
This story is from the October 2019 edition of Cranes & Access.
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This story is from the October 2019 edition of Cranes & Access.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
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