Saw a bad lift on a jobsite in Austin last week

Was down on 6th Street helping a buddy with a sign install and watched a guy try to pick a 4 ton HVAC unit with a boom truck that was way off level. He was jacking around with the outriggers for 20 minutes before giving up. Has anyone else run into operators who just skip leveling and hope for the best? How do you handle watching something sketchy without making enemies on site?

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3 Comments

lindaw294mo ago

Start laughing about the time I watched a guy try to level his truck by parking on a two-by-four (classy, right) and @elliots49's story about the flat tire forklift is making me wonder if we all just work with the same reckless idiot who travels between job sites. I'm not gonna lie, I've been that person who just stood there frozen (like a deer in headlights, honestly) while a load wobbled and hoped physics would just sort itself out. Had a buddy once try to lift a skip bin by balancing it on the edge of a pallet jack (spoiler: it did not work out), and I had to walk away before I screamed "just get a leveling kit already.

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elliots495mo ago

Man, that's rough. I saw a guy in Dallas try to lift a shipment of steel beams with a forklift that had one tire COMPLETELY flat, he just kept going and the whole load started tilting like the Leaning Tower. Had to walk away before I said something I'd regret, sometimes you just grit your teeth and hope they learn from the wobble.

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noahward5mo ago

Changed my mind on this honestly. Used to think you just let people make their own mistakes, but watching a load go sideways like that makes you wonder how many close calls take out a whole crew before someone speaks up.

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