New York Law Blog

As the death toll from crane accidents this week alone stands at six, Democrats in Congress decided to pressure federal safety standards regarding workplace safety. Nine Democrats, including Senator Barack Obama, called the lack of pressure for OSHA to make adjustments to safety standards which haven’t been improved since 2004 “unfathomable”. OSHA believes it is keeping up as well as it can with government regulatory issues involved.

Sharon Worthy, an OSHA spokeswoman, said regulatory and legal requirements slowed the rule-making process.

She said OSHA is sending more inspectors to its training-institute class that focuses on crane safety and organizing training events with local unions and industry groups. Overall, "workplace fatality rates are the lowest in history," she said.

So far in 2008, 18 construction workers have lost their lives, a figure that does not include bystanders who are killed in crane accidents. What could be causing the issues? Some believe it is a shortage of inspectors as well as an influx of inexperienced contractors in this time of increased construction demand.

It isn’t clear whether the rise in accidents is due to a rise in construction. OSHA estimates there are 96,000 cranes used in construction each year in the U.S. but couldn’t say Thursday whether the numbers of cranes in use has increased this year.

Also, developers and contractors are under increased pressure to complete projects, as delays can be costly and the market is already suffering from the weak economy.

Industry experts believe there are just not enough crane inspectors in the country for the amount of work that is being done. A levy of higher fines may increase pressure on contractors to make absolutely sure the cranes on their job site are 100% safe.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 25th, 2008 at 9:58 pm and is filed under Construction, Negligence. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.