Quote:
Originally Posted by kauriman  Hi Ekka
Excellent vid once again. Great techniques. Just wondering if you in Aus need traffic management when working close to roads?
Here in NZ any tree felling within two tree lengths of the road requires traffic management i.e. signs etc and trafffic stopped when the felling is taking place. Thats whether the tree is leaning towards, away or sideways to the road.
Any comments. |
The problem for anyone in Queensland is that outside of the general obligations for WH&S in the Act relating to ensuring a safe workplace there are no regulations and no code of conduct....Yep unlike the other states and territories we have no code of practice to follow at all.
The best we've got is this recommendation from QAA
WORKING SAFELY WITH TREES We believe that all workers in the amenity tree industry should work to legal and most importantly a safe working standard to protect not only the public and property, but also to reduce the risk of work related death and injury in our highly dangerous industry.
As we are yet to publish the Queensland Arboricultural Association Code of practice, we would like all our members to follow and adopt the Victorian Work Cover code of practice ?Working safely with trees? recommended practices for the amenity tree industry, until such time that the QAA Code of practice has been indorsed.
It is in everyone?s best interest to work to a standard that is recognized, as you, your business and your employee?s will benefit out of working in a safe environment.
We ask all members to familiarize themselves with the booklet and to get back to us with any feedback regarding this matter.
Thats how its been for a fair while now, and frankly it ain't good enough.
If you are members of QAA you should give them feedback
On a practical level if you're working for Roadtek or Main Roads clearing in the road reserve they will require a Traffic Management plan if the work can potentially impact upon road users - and that requires the use of acredited traffic control personnel. But if its only one small job for a private client then from what I've seen trees get dropped processed and the crew move on, and yep that can get pretty damn scary with some of the blokes knocking around
My advice is in Qld err on the side of caution, bigger felling jobs may need temp road closure contact the police in advance arrange traffic controllers written work method so on, and so on.
SF