Contractors do not usually ask regulators to impose more restrictions, but a trend in fatal crane accidents last year prompted one industry insider to act swiftly to clean up safety lapses.
In Philadelphia, where no cranes collapsed last year, city managers did not want to wait for tragedy to strike in their town, so they quickly drafted a regulation that would restrict permitting for tower-crane operations. Those initial rules were not broad enough for Frank Bardonaro Jr., president and COO of AmQuip, a large crane contractor in Bensalem, Pa. When he first caught wind of the proposal, Bardonaro immediately assembled industry groups, including a local steel erector, labor unions and a rigging outfit to help the city craft a more intelligent policy.