Showerthought: My old hand signals versus the new radio system

I ran a tower crane for a job in Portland last year where we used the standard hand signals, and then this spring on a different site they had us use a two-way radio with headsets. The difference was huge. With the radio, we moved about 15% more material per day because I could get clear confirmations and ask questions without anyone running around. On the Portland job, a misread signal from 20 stories up almost caused a rebar bundle to swing into the scaffold. Has anyone else's company made this switch, and how did your crew adjust?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_elizabeth1mo ago

Our safety guy in Houston said radios cut miscommunication incidents by 40 percent. The hand signals manual is outdated for high wind or long distances. The crew grumbled about the headsets at first but adapted in a week.

the_karen1mo ago

Forty percent sounds like a made up number.

luna_kim4019d ago

The 40 percent number from their safety guy lines up with a study OSHA published back in 2016. At my last job in Seattle, we switched to radios halfway through a high rise project. I was the guy who dropped a wrench once because I was trying to do hand signals in 30 mph wind. The headset saved me from looking like a total idiot more times than I can count. Sure, the crew complained about the earwax buildup on the shared headsets at first, but after they saw we weren't yelling at each other anymore they shut up pretty fast.