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Post by canhauler on Oct 10, 2009 7:41:20 GMT -5
Goose Creek man killed in port accidentwww.postandcourier.com/news/2009/oct/07/man-hit-crane-ports/Staff report Wednesday, October 7, 2009 A truck driver died Wednesday morning after he was struck by a crane inside State Ports Authority property. Calvin "Jake" Jacobs, 64, of Goose Creek, was pronounced dead at the scene, Charleston County Coroner Rae Wooten said. The accident happened just before 11 a.m. at SPA property near Remount Road and Virginia Avenue in North Charleston. The truck driver had exited his vehicle and was walking across the storage yard when he was hit by a rubber-tired gantry crane, said Byron Miller, public relations director for the authority. "Obviously, the thoughts and prayers of the entire maritime community are with his friends and family," Miller said. The coroner said an autopsy would be conducted Thursday. The accident is being investigated by North Charleston police.
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Post by HardTimeTrucker on Oct 10, 2009 11:49:31 GMT -5
Every port is a dangerous working environment that forgives no mistakes. The problem with most ports (excluding most Virginia terminal operations) is every loading/unloading operation is funneled into the field where stacks of containers are piled high waiting for an accident to happen. At the port of Savannah for example trains, autos, motorcycles, pickups, top lifts, gantry cranes, trans cranes, port jockey trucks, big trucks, mechanics, all are competing in a never ending chaos between the rows of stacked containers.
Truckers at most port operations are exposed to containers hanging sometimes seven stories over their head while positioning the truck for the crane operator instead of the operator moving the box himself in position to mount on the truck. Drivers are also in close proximity around the wheels of this giant equipment with an operator sometimes in a cab sixty feet in the air with limited visibility.
These type hazardous problems could all safely be corrected by having a system like the Virginia Ports do. They have implemented trucker "load/unload only" staging areas using straddle lift carriers with longshoremen members doing the shuttle work from the container stacks to the trucks located in the staging area. These are secure load areas where twenty to thirty trucks are waiting side by side for the boxes to be brought to them or removed with safe areas in front of the trucks for drivers to remain. The loads or empty boxes in Virginia are replaced with out driver assist behind the wheel as lifts bring the boxes from the stacks out the waiting trucks..
That's not the situation here in the South. We are constantly being exposed to thousands of pounds of cargo dangling dangerously over our head inside our cab or while outside our truck dodging the wheels of enormous heavy equipment in this unsafe working environment we are provided.
There have been many accidents where truckers are injured or even killed by boxes accidentally dropped from a top loader or port crane. It doesn't take but only a few inches above the lock pins of a chassis for something to go wrong with a box weighing up-wards of fifty thousand pounds. This can inflect serious injury on any trucker who has to remain sitting in the cab to participate in the live loading/unloading operation.
In Virginia the shuttle lifts do the transfer location work going out to the container rows to retrieve or discharge the boxes without any other vehicle traffic in their way. After returning from the container storage dock area the straddle lift crane approaches the truck staging area slowly loading from the rear while the trucker remains safely in front out of the way. The ILA operator lowers the box just above the frame as he moves forward to place the box without the driver having to participate by moving the truck. If the shuttle operator doesn't see the driver in the required safe area he immediately stops the load operation.
This Virginia operation should become the prime safety standard followed at every port facility but sadly that's not the case.
Management at our port facilities say cost savings are the main reason of having the trucker go out into the unsafe stack area. They say the ports here can stack more containers per acre than the Virginia ports because they can stack them higher without the straddle lift system. Management says the Virginia ports type lift operation is flawed because they can only go three boxes high. That's not totally the truth. True, the boxes are not stacked as high but there are less space between the rows where only the shuttle lift wheels need room travel.
Unless there is change drivers or port workers here in are doomed to continue the daily dangerous game of playing chicken in the field among everything that will move. This also includes the thousands of stacked boxes which could shift anytime during inclement weather or a bump from a piece of heavy equipment.
It seems safety of workers doesn't rank high as a concern among our port management sitting behind their comfortable desk out of harms way.
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Post by nutsnbolts on Oct 10, 2009 12:17:20 GMT -5
Do you really think the port cares, NO  |
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Post by pkd5757 on Oct 10, 2009 16:44:13 GMT -5
They should care! Anyone working the port should be calling OSHA. I hope his family gets a good lawyer too! Up here in Boston they have so many cars and pickup trucks driving around, you never know what's around the corner of a stack. My sympathy goes out to the family. It's especially hard to understand why something so preventable happens. To the drivers in Charleston......Please don't let this happen again, Speak Up and make sure your heard.
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Post by carolinajoe on Oct 10, 2009 21:25:50 GMT -5
I had a close call the other day when a newbie operator released the d@*n box before setting it down all the way on the locking pins. I was bounced up inside against the ceiling of my cab. Then he lifts it back up and wants me to move the truck back again. I told him after that he better just move the lift over a few inches. I wasn't climbing back inside so he could repeat his stupid mistake a second time. They bring these new trainees out here loading us instead of letting them practice with boxes on the ground or stacking them for a time.
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Post by essiah1 on Jul 19, 2011 19:38:12 GMT -5
yea its pretty safe here in the port of virginia but some drivers are still idiots flying up and down the loading areas but over all its a good system here all you port drivers be safe
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Post by jj on Aug 2, 2011 18:57:13 GMT -5
I had a close call the other day when a newbie operator released the d@*n box before setting it down all the way on the locking pins. I was bounced up inside against the ceiling of my cab. Then he lifts it back up and wants me to move the truck back again. I told him after that he better just move the lift over a few inches. I wasn't climbing back inside so he could repeat his stupid mistake a second time. They bring these new trainees out here loading us instead of letting them practice with boxes on the ground or stacking them for a time. this musta been the georgia ports. we are the gpa test dummies for new operators to train on. |
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