Millions of Americans enjoy the rugged thrills of riding the little go-getters known as ATVs. But if you’re one of them, do you know what you drive? Is it an ATV — an all terrain vehicle –  or perhaps a UTV, a utility terrain vehicle? And do you have legal protection if such a vehicle fails you and causes an injury?

While ATV is an umbrella term for the small off-road recreational vehicles whose sales have topped seven million units, Yamaha would rather call its Rhino a UTV.

Why? Because designating the Rhino differently relieves Yamaha from federal safety standards applied to ATVs. And because muddying the waters with rotating terms confuses regulators with the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission.

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It’s official — or at least painfully obvious: America is enduring a plague of construction crane collapse accidents. And anyone who’s near any of these towering cranes — often the height of a skyscraper — should be wary, be alert and be quick to leave the vicinity as soon as possible.

It shouldn’t be that way. Ordinary citizens shouldn’t have to fear for their lives whenever remotely near a construction site on which a construction crane is being used. But facts are facts, and the fact is, after construction crane collapses in New York City (with two), Houston, Miami, Las Vegas and Oklahoma City recently, yet another construction crane collapse now tragically arises in Quincy, MA. Sadly, they’re becoming almost routine, though their toll in lives is anything but that. Rather, it’s devastating. (more…)

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Are construction crane fatalities officially an epidemic yet? Already this year, people have died in Houston, Oklahoma City, New York City (in two separate accidents) and now Central Texas. And as tragic as those deaths are, the frequency of the calamities is becoming almost as routine as celebrities who can afford chauffeurs being arrested for their own drunk driving. In either case, such events are needless, avoidable and persistent.

The latest such construction crane tragedy occurred Wednesday in Smithville of Bastrop County, about 45 miles southeast of Austin. There, workers were removing steel girders from an old bridge spanning the Colorado River. The idea was to replace the bridge. (more…)

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Less than a week after a construction crane accident claimed the lives of four oil refinery contract workers in Houston, a crane accident in Oklahoma City took the life of an 80-year-old man who was simply an onlooker while a church steeple was being placed.

The man was sitting in the front seat of his car as a steeple was being raised during the building of a new church in Oklahoma City. When the steeple had been lifted about 10 feet off the ground, the crane and its apparatus tipped over, falling on the man’s vehicle and killing him. His wife, who was in the back seat and managed to get out of the car, survived.

This was a much smaller crane than the one which toppled in Houston last Friday. The OKC crane’s boom was only about 80 feet, while the crane which fell at the LyondellBassell refinery at the Houston Ship Channel was 300 feet tall and had a capacity to lift more than a million pounds. (more…)

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What will it take to wake up Texas to its horrific problem with construction crane collapses? Texans like to think of their state as No. 1, but sometimes it’s No. 1 for the wrong reasons, and that’s too often the case with construction crane fatalities.

In 2005 and 2006, Texas led the nation in construction crane fatalities, with a total of 26 for that period, the Associated Press reports. Now Texas has four construction crane fatalities for 2008, after Friday’s collapse of a 300-foot construction crane at the LyondellBasell refinery at the Houston Ship Channel. Seven others were injured.
Did this accident have to happen? No. Almost by definition, no accident “has” to happen, and all accidents are preventable. In this case, it seems laws and regulations are extremely loose concerning the kind of towering construction cranes which collapsed in Houston and the two which collapsed earlier this year in New York City, killing nine people there. (more…)

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