Heard a guy say he never uses his load indicator, got me thinking

I was grabbing coffee last Tuesday and overheard this older operator at the yard say he's been running cranes for 20 years and never once used the load indicator. Said he can 'feel' when it's getting heavy. That just sounds risky to me, especially with how tight some of these picks are on smaller jobsites. Has anyone else run into guys who skip the tech and go by gut feeling?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_anthony11d ago

Honestly those older guys have been doing this since before computers did half the work. Your gut feeling gets pretty dialed in after twenty years of feeling the crane dance under load. Plus those indicators can give false readings or get bumped out of calibration anyway.

reese_hayes7111d ago

Is this really some kind of life or death skill?

kaigibson8d ago

So you're telling me the guy who's been running a crane since before the internet existed is supposed to trust his "gut feeling" over a sensor that tells him exactly how much weight is on the hook? What could possibly go wrong there. I guess all those engineering manuals and load charts are just for decoration at this point. Nothing says safety like "I've got a hunch it's fine" when you're dangling a multi-ton steel beam over someone's head.