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New York Crane Database: Will It Prevent Crane Accidents?

Following two deadly crane accidents in New York City last year that took the lives of nine construction workers, the city has agreed to create a crane database that tracks vital crane information and that will hopefully curb crane accidents and crane accident injuries in the future.

However, some, such as the Specialized Carriers and Rigging Association (SC&RA) believe that the crane database is not answering the pertinent questions surrounding crane accidents and their causes. According to the SC&RA, most crane accidents are not caused by component failure - a problem that could be reduced through the crane-tracking database - but rather by human error, poor ground conditions, power lines, and errors during assembly or disassembly.

In a letter to Mayor Bloomberg, executive vice president of SC&RA Joel Dandrea stated that the new crane database will be ineffective, impractical, and unnecessary since such a small percentage of crane accidents will be stopped because of the database.

The letter went on to explain that many crane parts are interchangeable - and that even more crane parts are without serial numbers, making accurate and helpful crane tracking impossible.

Instead of supporting a crane database, Dandrea suggested working on other issues that could improve crane safety and reduce the number of construction site accidents in New York City.

Proponents of the new crane database point to the fact that a crane tracking system was one of the recommendations from the High Risk Construction Oversight study, which the Department of Buildings launched in July, 2008, after the second crane accident took place in New York. In the past year, 26 construction workers have died in New York City.

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