The Illusion of Safety: Safe vs. Safer vs. Safer-er

My solution was to temp butterfly near end of 'left' end of lanyard; for krab.
Alternate as go over branches; if connected to snap under branch ; throw krab/bFly over branch, connect, disconnect snap.
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Not really for a very well scaffolded pine, limbs out either side;
but generally can ladder past that point.
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Always prefer death grip on trusty rope around tree,rather than tree as stated for other times.
 
Muggs said:
I agree Kevin, stop thinking about it so much and just post your stuff. Here's one thing I know for sure, haters are the people who don't produce content. They can't produce anything and put it out for the world to see, because they are terrified of the criticism. They know how incredibly easy it would be for others to pick it apart, because that's what they spend their time doing, tearing apart everything that other people put out. It's like the music critic who can tear apart the newest album, but would never, ever have the courage to put out an album of their own stuff. There are only two sides to the world of content on social media (social media being a slang term for the current state of the internet): either you produce content, or you sit at home and criticize other people's content.

People who produce content and put it out for the world to see are not the ones sitting around criticizing other people's stuff. Because we don't have time. We're too busy actually doing things! You want to do backflips out of a tree? Cool bro. You want to do backflips out of a tree, and film it, and put it out there so that I can see it? Even better.


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Very broad brush you are painting humanity with sir. MANY, SEVERE gaps in your assertions as to who does what and why.

I know 1 Treeman in the upper 90th percentile for skill, talent, safety and professionalism who humbly and quietly lets his deeds speak for themselves. And he is probably one of hundreds like himself.

Law #2 of the 21 Irrefutable Laws if Leadership by John C. Maxwell highlights an anecdote that one of the key leaders in a group John was newly appointed as leader, was a quiet, elderly farmer who said little in meetings. Yet, his influence and leadership was so respected, and his words so rare that they were always poignant and necessary for consideration.

Conversely ........ Seagulls attract a lot of attention, but produce little more than noise. Balance is key.
 
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RopeShield said:
Problem is most times there Is more than on limb, there's a whorl. In the end you are relying on one safety.
Personally I am not comfortable doing that.
And regarding an apprentice I prefer to see two all the time. Obviously it's not necessary all the time, some times the tree is ladder like Frax has explained. Still it's safer do have two all the time
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In the Ontario Arborist apprenticeship program it is clearly not allowed to use a single point. That's how they train and evaluate. It's a fail if you were to climb with a single lanyard. So, from that standpoint they're looking to develop new climbers to have the habit of always being tied in. Whether it's one whorl, branch or dozens.

The haters comment is rather ludicrous. Plenty of people who comment are not creating content because they don't have the time nor inclination to produce a decent video or pic. I've got plenty of pics of my feet and rope or even the odd selfie. They get old fast. Slapping a GoPro on my helmet was a neat idea but then when I got home, cooking, environmental commission work, volunteer work, household chores and just doing something that wasn't related to trees took priority. The time I spend on here or FB wouldn't be sufficient to edit video to the point it was worth watching. I did have it on my helmet once but, I forgot to turn it on!
 
treehumper said:
In the Ontario Arborist apprenticeship program it is clearly not allowed to use a single point. That's how they train and evaluate. It's a fail if you were to climb with a single lanyard. So, from that standpoint they're looking to develop new climbers to have the habit of always being tied in. Whether it's one whorl, branch or dozens.

The haters comment is rather ludicrous. Plenty of people who comment are not creating content because they don't have the time nor inclination to produce a decent video or pic. I've got plenty of pics of my feet and rope or even the odd selfie. They get old fast. Slapping a GoPro on my helmet was a neat idea but then when I got home, cooking, environmental commission work, volunteer work, household chores and just doing something that wasn't related to trees took priority. The time I spend on here or FB wouldn't be sufficient to edit video to the point it was worth watching. I did have it on my helmet once but, I forgot to turn it on!
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Well said Rob.....
 
Muggs said:
Good day friends, today I want to talk to you about climbing and production tree work. Sound good? Ok, let's begin.

Today you are going to learn the master key, the grand secret of tree work. This will probably change your life. Pay attention now, we're going to move fast. Here it is -

Safety, safety, safety, safety, safety, safety.

Safety! Safety.

Safety, safety, safety. (Safety, safety).

safety.............

"Safety?" Safety!

And just so we're clear... SAFETY!

I hope you learned as much from that as I did. This concludes the lesson, carry on with your day.

Climb safe, Work safe, Read safe.
- TreeMuggs

Meow let's all get out there and just be safe. OK?

(sarcasm implied...)

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Wait. Let's start over. First of all, some definitions:


Safe

/sāf/

adjective

1. protected from or not exposed to danger or risk;
2. in other words, a utopian condition continually strived for, but impossible to attain, due to the nature of... reality.


Safer, Safer-er, Safest, etc.

/sāfər/

adjective

1. illusory and subjective concept with no endpoint; these terms are therefore to be defined as: undefined.


Safety Police

/'sāftē pəˈlēs/

noun

1. a small but vocal minority of people in this trade, usually (but not exclusively) encountered online, who feel the need to validate their own superior knowledge by continually pointing out how things could have been done "safer" and "safer-er". Unofficial Motto: "Nobody moves, nobody gets hurt".


Context

First of all, I work in the private sector. I run my own tree service. What little money I make from this enterprise helps to put food on the table. In other words, my production at work matters. I have to get stuff done to get paid. I can't take 2 1/2 days to get a tree down. We don't have guys with white hats standing around. I don't work for a city, or a municipality, or "hydro". If you do, mazel tov. I have more friends in the industry who have left the private sector than those who have stuck around. They leave for the better pay, the benefits, the pension, and all the other perks. I get why they leave. I don't hold it against them, and I'm not envious of their position. Why do I stick around in the private sector? I stick around because I value freedom more than security. Being my own boss affords me a freedom that my friends elsewhere simply don't have. I set my own schedule, I choose my own customers, I make my own way. I say all of that to give you some context for where I'm coming from.

I may take a lot of flack for this article from the Safety Police and others in the "industry", but this is a subject that needs to be addressed. This is something that a whole lot of people think about, but it is politically incorrect to talk about. I care about safety as much as the next guy, but make no mistake, nobody cares more about your own personal safety than you do.

What is Safety?

I care deeply about safety. I want nothing more for myself or my employees than for all of us to be able to go home at the end of the day intact. But make no mistake, the reason that we all come to work each day is not to "be safe". Sorry if you've been told otherwise. No, the reason that we all come to work each day is to get shit done.

I believe that safety in terms of a production arborist has a lot more to do with how you interact with others, rather than how you interact with yourself. Once you know the rules of the game, only you can define what is "safe" for yourself. If I'm on a ground crew and I get hit without warning by a big chunk of tree, what does it matter that the climber who sent it down was using 2 lanyards, both with a 540 wrap, and 2 climbing lines "for redundancy"?

There is a strong correlation between a climber who exhibits good personal safety and also works hard in a team setting to watch out for other's safety. But correlation does not imply causation. Again, nobody cares more about your own personal safety than you do.

Safe Enough

I want to introduce a concept that seems to have been lost on most institutional teachers and trainers, as well as the infamous "safety police" that lurks online. That is the concept of "safe enough". We must make allowance for "safe enough" because things could ALWAYS be "safer" and "safer-er".

If you are a trained and competent climber and you want to spur up a tree with just a lanyard and no climbing rope belay, then go ahead. I'm not going to put my Safety Police hat on and lecture you on how you could be "safer" or "safer-er". The important thing here is to be "trained and competent", and this means knowing the what-ifs, knowing what you are trying to avoid. You need to understand the rules and why they are there, before you can break them. As long as you know what a kickout is and how to avoid it by keeping your weight on the spurs and lanyard, then spurring with just a lanyard is "safe". Old-timers used to actually refer to their lanyard as their "safety" - i.e. the lanyard is what makes spurring safe. Would you be "safer" with a secondary, backup lanyard? Probably. Would you be "safer-er" by setting a climbing rope from the ground and belaying as you ascend? Yes, you would be. But just because you choose not to, that does not make spurring with just a lanyard "unsafe". Do you see the difference? The Safety Police would have you believe that if something is even a bit less than "safer-er" then it must be "unsafe". This is a false dichotomy, because climbing trees is inherently unsafe.

At some point, there must exist a "safe enough". We must make allowance for "safe enough" because at the end of the day, we do actually need to get up there and get the work done. If the one and only situation in which we can say that we are really, truly safe is when we stay at home and lie in bed, then we have a serious problem. Not only that, but couldn't I argue that if you are "safe" at home in bed, you would be "safer" at home in bed with a helmet on? Wouldn't you be "safer-er" if you moved your bed down into the basement in case of tornado? What about hurricanes and floods? Raging wild fires? Bed bugs?


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Safety is an illusion. You can NEVER be perfectly, well and truly safe. We are climbing living organisms, natural systems that could fail at any time, while swinging around on little nylon ropes with running chainsaws for God's sakes! This is not a safe thing to do!


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Concept: Minimum Effective Dose (M.E.D.)

The Safety Police are always obsessed with "safer", but what does that even mean? This is a game that has no endpoint. Water boils at 100?C (212?F) - that is the minimum effective dose for boiling water. At any given time, water is either boiled, or it isn't. Bringing water up to 150?C does not make it "more boiled". (Borrowed from "The 4-Hour Body" by Tim Ferriss.)

When you work on a crew, safety is everybody's job. You need to work as a team: everybody looks out for everybody else. Does that make it a "safe" situation? No. Tree work is dangerous. Driving to work every morning is dangerous. But we still have to get to work. So, we apply the minimum effective dose of safety to our driving.

- seatbelts, brakes, airbags, not texting, paying attention, etc.
- would we be "safer" wearing helmets and full body harnesses like in Nascar? Yes, we would. Would we be "safer-er" if we never drove faster than 30 mph? Yes, we would. Could I keep going with this analogy? Yes, I could go on for quite some time. My point is, we have agreed on a certain base level of safety precautions, and at some point, we just have to put our faith in Providence, hop in the car, and get to work.


Conclusion

Please don't take any of this the wrong way. I am certainly not condoning any behaviors that we can all agree are unsafe. I simply need you to understand that tree work is not about safety. It's about work. Of course we strive for safety in the execution of our work, but the reason that we come to work is not to "be safe". Learn the rules of the game. Learn how to get the work done in the best and safest way possible. Just don't be delusional about why we do what we do. Going back to our driving analogy, we could argue on the interwebs about what is "safer-er" all day long, but arguing does not get us from point A to point B... driving does.



Climb high, Work smart, Read more. Oh, also, be safe (seriously).

- TreeMuggs
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What is your CTSP# ?, just curious, you seem to have a beef,
What are you credentials and concern, ?
Or are you just buzzed and spouting off because you feel good?
Any answer is ok,,
Jeff :cool:
 
treehumper said:
This is just so much rationalizing that good enough is fine. Your analogy, seatbelts, airbags, etc... all modern steps taken to make driving safer developed because what was didn't make things safe enough. Now, is that safe enough? Since people still die due to preventable causes then the answer is no. That's what has led to things like back up cameras, blindspot warning, ABS, autonomous driving.... Imagine if the airline industry thought this way?

The notion that I go to work to get shit done... uhhhhh... No, I go to work to earn a living... as in what I do after work. So, going to work is a means to an end not the end itself. If I can get this shit done in a way that better assures I go home to that life alive and whole then that is the way to go. As in all things, are we at the pinnacle of understanding and knowledge or, is what we know today good enough for all the tomorrows to come?

So despite your essay, the answer is no we are not safe enough. It's like doing your best. It's only your best today, tomorrow you can do better. What that means is a whole host of measures not just one narrowly focused on production. The funny thing is that when we add more dimensions to our work then we increase the value of that work and thus the earnings we can derive from it. The job then becomes matching that value to clients who share that value and will thus pay the price for it.

Without getting into the other dimensions, here's why our clients will pay for safer and safer-er: they don't value people dying or being severely injured on their property. Their lawyers and insurers will tell them the same thing.

Safety police are not so idealistic to think that we can make this job absolutely safe. Yes, living is inherently risky but we apply our learning, knowledge, experience, and foresight collectively to derive current baselines of safe enough. In our industry, we agree as to what is unsafe and create a set of rules, some as shalls others as shoulds, and that's the Z-133. It is a continually developing document, build on what has gone on before and what we can see coming. Those are a pretty good set of rules for our game today. It forms the basis of training for the workforce in the aspect of how to work in a way that reduces the risk of not getting shit done. Tomorrow is another day, with new parameters and new tools that we can apply to our jobs that make us more productive and safer.

Both are necessary because both go to our bottomline. While you may never experience an accident, just as many drivers, when it happens, the cost far outweighs the savings of not having adopted those safer-er practices. That's experience speaking, btw.

Yes, nobody cares more about my personal safety than me but, as you've noted, this is a team effort and as such creates an interdependence. I don't operate in a bubble of personal safety but in an ecosystem of safety for all who enter the work zone. As such, I can't be the only one, all must work to that level of safety. It is just as unproductive for one person to fall short of those expectations as it is for them to slack on the job.

Every industry is striving to create predictability whether it is in production or safety or markets. That's why we see investment in safety. It creates more predictability in all the costs associated with workplace injuries and fatalities.

Take the time to talk to Dr. John Ball and review the industry's performance year over year. He'll shed some light on the whole issue of safer and safer-er.
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So, people are stupid,,interesting
Jeff :cool:
 
jefftheswede said:
What is your CTSP# ?, just curious, you seem to have a beef,
What are you credentials and concern, ?
Or are you just buzzed and spouting off because you feel good?
Any answer is ok,,
Jeff :cool:
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CTSP#? Creds? Beefs? Buzzed? Really? Who the fuck put your charge?
Muggs is just another small business owner, running a tree service. Like many around here he walks the line between efficiency and safety, banging out the tree in front of him in a safe and efficient manner, so he can live to move on to the next tree. Hows that for creds? Keep up the good work Muggs.
 
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rico said:
Thank Gawd the Ontario Arborist apprenticeship program wasn't around here or tree-men wouldn't have been able to get much done for the last 125 yrs. Funny but I have ascended hundreds of trees with nothing but spurs, a flip-line, and a climbing line hanging off my saddle and I'm very much alive and well. I personally know old timers that climbed that way for well over 50 years and lived to tell about it. Its just another technique/tool that any good Tree-man should have in their arsenal, and just like any tool or technique we must respect it and take the time and learn to use it properly. Haters gonna Hate, but folks out here have and will continue to use this very useful, proven technique , if and when the tree calls for it.
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When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. The IF and WHEN requires judgment that some don't have.


The flip side, how many climbers have been injured or killed as a result of only one lanyard?

On a conifer, spurs and flip line are one thing, a leaning willow, alder, etc, it's another.




A guy who worked for me for a short bit worked for some old climber who free climbed to the top, tied in, and wouldn't use a lanyard, ever! Leg locking limbs, etc, etc. Ol' man survived a long time. Probably hasn't fallen too badly, yet.
 
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stick to your guns Rico, there will always be an improved weapon/technique.
also that tree crumble was lucky, that tailing rope could have ripped him out of the tree as fast as it fell.
bag your rope, its an extension of your life, its an appendage, its blood and bone..
 
It's funny, you hear from the guys who say, "I've done it this way for 20 years, and I'm still alive".
But you never hear from the guys who said "I did it this way for 20 years, and then I died doing it that way" or "I did it this way for 20 years but in year 21 I became a drooling vegetable who needs a poorly paid assistant to help me take a shit".
That second thing is what encourages me to be extra safe. If it was just about dying, I might not try as hard, although I'm never a "cowboy" about anything.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk
 
southsoundtree said:
When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. The IF and WHEN requires judgment that some don't have.


The flip side, how many climbers have been injured or killed as a result of only one lanyard?

On a conifer, sport and flip line are one thing, a leaning willow, alder, etc, it's another.




A guy who worked for me for a short bit worked for some old climber who free climbed to the top, tied in, and wouldn't use a lanyard, ever! Leg locking limbs, etc, etc. Ol' man survived a long time. Probably hasn't fallen too badly, yet.
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In the spirit of keeping it genuine and real, I got to say that was some condescending bullshit from beginning to end.
It’s pretty clear that some of the arborists folks around here are way out of my f****cking league, so I’ll leave it to you to sort out such very important matters, make the world a safer place, and reinvent the wheel.
This old knuckle draggin’ climber will stick to posting vids and pics of his nothin’ special, meat and potatoes, nail and hammer treework over at the Redwoood Top and Drop thread. Be well and for heaven sakes be safe out there.
 
Rico, I didn't say YOU only have a hammer. Not about you. Please reread without, what seems to be, taking it personally.

You seemingly have the experience and judgment to know IF and When.



Lots, LOTS, of climbers only have a hammer.

Lots of climbers have fallen, cut themselves from poor work positioning, etc.
 
I just want to say that I checked out Travor. I like him. He wears PPE, is good at positioning, and his rigging and cuts look pretty good.
I don't like how much slack his line has sometimes when he's walking back up into position, but that's a small peeve. @Crazy_Jimmy converted me with a very short comment about slack in climb lines.

He's pretty safe and has fun. Thanks for introducing me to him.
 
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