[ QUOTE ]
but why were chipper trucks made so slow? for safety?
[/ QUOTE ] Are you talking Asplundh trucks or other previous ROW/ utility trucks?
I say it's because most asplundh contracts are paid by the hour and they don't want to pay much for the trucks, so trucks are slow and under-equiped, chippers are little and slow and men are slow, they just try to have a decent forman to try to keep the new guys from getting hurt.
They don't want fast and efficient, they want cheap equipment and slow.
I looked into bidding on a few jobs before. Hourly, it was rediculous. I would have to sell our good stuff, get rid of skilled men and buy cheap trucks and chippers to work for those prices.
When driving by; I witnessed a 3 man Asplundh crew work for 7 or 8 days cutting right of way on a road near me. I saw what they were doing just about every day. I stopped and watched for a while one day when I wasn't in a hurry. At the end of it, I had a figure in my head that it would have taken our 3 man crew and equipment about 1.5 days to do what they did. So, without saying any numbers, I asked my two other co-workers, how long do you think it would have taken us? They said about a day, worst case, two days. I said exactly.
Now, contracts paid by the mileage is a different game.
