Bucket Truck Accidents

A bucket truck is a truck with a boom and “bucket” or “cherry-picker” attached, often employed as service vehicles in the television, telephone, and utility businesses, usually as a way of accessing wires high in the air.  The bucket acts as a work platform that can be raised to reach otherwise inaccessible heights such as trees, higher storied buildings, or tall signs.

Common But Deadly

Bucket trucks are a common sight on American roadways and as a part of American commerce, but they can also cause many truck accidents and work-related injuries and deaths.  The Occupational Safety and Health Administration estimates that 60 to 100 linemen, men who work in bucket trucks on utility lines, sustain “devastating” injuries every year.  And that number only takes into account private companies who have to report to OSHA.  Over the twelve year period from 1982 to 1994, the National Institute for Occupation Safety and Health recorded 244 such deaths, or a little over 20 per year.

Why So Dangerous?

There are a number of reasons why so many accidents and deaths occur to people employing bucket trucks.  They include:

Inadequate training and warnings

• Lax maintenance
• Faulty rental equipment

Many of the users of bucket trucks are renters, renting the equipment for a one-time job such as painting a house, trimming some trees, or installing a sign.  These renters are rarely given adequate training as to how to use the equipment or to avoid the many dangers facing a bucket truck.  Further, lax maintenance and faulty rental equipment can lead to:

• Boom failure
• Truck imbalance and tipping
• Mechanical failures resulting in horrible injury or death

Utility De-Regulation

Another leading cause of bucket truck accidents, particularly on-the-job accidents, is the de-regulation of electrical utilities in the 1980s.  Less regulation means that companies are able to cut more corners in order to turn a profit, making power lines more and more dangerous for linemen.  Less regulation means:

Linemen have less training

• Linemen have less experience
• Linemen are more susceptible to mistake and error
• It’s harder to hold these companies liable for injuries or deaths resulting from ax standards and training

Combined with “reformed” workers’ compensation laws that limit how much compensation an injured worker can receive, people hurt on the job in a bucket truck accident face an uphill battle to win proper compensation.