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Hand signals vanishing from site, next guy nearly got crushed
Last Tuesday on a job in Newark, I watched a new spotter try to direct a pick using just a radio and his voice, ignoring the handbook of standard hand signals we all agreed on. The load swung wide over a crew shack because his verbal line of sight was off, and it took a loud horn blast to stop things before someone got hurt. Am I the only one still teaching the old arm-and-fist signals to every green guy that walks on site, or did we really trade safety for convenience this fast?
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king.aaron1mo ago
That spotter had to have been told the hand signals at some point, even if the crew skipped the full walkthrough. My question is this: who exactly signed off on letting a green guy run a pick with just a radio? Because in my book, that call sits with the foreman or the lift director, not the kid holding the mic. The hand signals are still in the handbook for a reason, and they work when the radio dies or the noise kicks up. I've seen too many close calls turn into bad days because someone thought yelling was clearer than a closed fist. So was this a training fail, or did someone just decide the old way was too slow?
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