Before leaving for any demolition job, truck drivers and demolition drivers need to perform pre-trip checks on their vehicles to make sure everything is locked in and working properly. This can prevent accidents at or on the way to and from the job site. It’s not just good sense—it’s also the law.
Why is the pre-trip check important?
Any company working in a construction-related industry has a responsibility to ensure the protection of not just their own workers but of any pedestrian they might come across on the way to the job site or at or near the job site. One of the principal ways of guaranteeing you’re doing everything you can to protect the pedestrians you come into contact with in your building demolition work is to make sure that you regularly inspect your vehicles, and perform a pre-check every time you start a new shift, leave for a site, change drivers in a vehicle or leave a site for the day.
What’s the worst that could happen?
While it’s true that the vast majority of demolition jobs go off without a hitch, it’s equally true that in an occupation as inherently dangerous as building demolition in Kansas City ––and that uses tools that are as enormous, complicated and powerful as those we use in demolition––the consequences of something going wrong are inherently much worse than the consequences of something going wrong in another job.
At an office job, you might accidentally CC your boss on something embarrassing. On a demolition job, a 33-ton demolition hydraulic excavator might fall off of a truck on the interstate because someone failed to do a pre-check. This is why we say that we have a duty to protect the public.
The checklist
Before every trip, you’ll want to check your fluid levels, your belts, your air compressors, the steering mechanisms in your truck, the suspension, the drive shaft and basically make sure that all structural parts of your vehicle are in good shape, are not overly rusted and are not likely to fracture. You even need to check the small stuff, like that your horn and windshield wipers are functioning, as they are quite important in an emergency.
For your demolition hydraulic excavator, a lot of the pre-check is the same. Additionally, you’ll want to check the work tool for wear, the boom and stick for damage, make sure that you have a fire extinguisher on board and that your horn and back up alarms work.
Professional building demolition in Kansas City
Even though it can be tedious to perform these checks day after day, shift after shift, it’s good sense, and it’s the law. Doing building demolition in Kansas City is kind of an amazing job. These enormous, rugged structures have stood the test of time, and taking them down to make way for the future is work that requires quite a lot of power. And with all that power, if there’s something wrong or out of calibration, things can get quite dangerous for everyday people. This is why, at Midland Wrecking Inc., we take our responsibility so seriously, and why our building demolition drivers and workers are encouraged to be so rigorous about their safety precautions.