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North American Network Operators Group Date Prev | Date Next | Date Index | Thread Index | Author Index | Historical RE: Facts, Statistics and Urban Legends from the backhoe convention
> From: Sean Donelan [mailto:[email protected]] > Sent: Sunday, December 03, 2000 6:59 AM I noticed these two points, from you message, and moved them together. If this is the current business case, for excavators; > A review of 582 damage incidents caused by excavator error resulted > in an average cost to the excavator of $1,488 per incident. > It is often > less expensive for the excavator to dig through the utilities than > around them. Then what do you think would happen if the real costs were passed on for them to pay? > Sprint estimates the cost to repair a single cable cut between > $50,000 to $65,000. Loss of Use costs may be over $200,000. This sounds real accurate. Why aren't the excavators seeing these costs? I'd bet a saw-buck that their behavior would be modified if this was what they were hit with. > In one court case, the excavator's president testified that it was > his company's standard practice to ignore OSHA regulations, > ANSI standards, > and guidelines set out in Bell South brochures and to always > excavate with > mechanized equipment directly over the orange paint marks showing the > location of underground telecommunications facilities. He further > testified that his company averaged one and one-half cable > cuts a month, > and considered damging underground facilities as simple a > cost of doing > business. I'm only a businessman, but this sounds like he's a creature that has adapted adequately to his environment. > My questions: If he always dug directly over the orange paint > marks, why > was the locate so poor he only hit a cable once ever month and a half? This one made ne laugh for a solid five minutes. ROTFLMAO! |