Thoughts on mandatory daily testing vs. supervisor discretion?

I've spent fifteen years around Liebherr and Potain rigs, and honestly, the thougt of a guy in a 150-foot cab being hammered makes my skin crawl. On a site in Chicago a few years back, we had a rigger show up smelling like a brewery, and he almost dropped a bundle of rebar right onto a generator set. If that load had shifted six inches to the left, three guys whould’ve been done for.

Relying on a foreman to catch red flags is a joke when they're busy looking at blueprints or arguing with the sub-contractors. By the time someone notices a guy is swaying, he’s allready hoisted a ten-ton precast panel over a public sidewalk. Mandatory daily testing for anyone operating heavy machinery like a Cat excavator or a tower crane shoud be the standard. It isn't about privacy; it's about the fact that I want to go home to my family at the end of the day without worrying about a drunk swinging a jib.

Mandatory breathalyzers sound like a quick fix, but I’ve seen that approach backfire on plenty of job sites. On a bridge project I worked on outside Philly, we had a strict testing policy, yet guys still found ways to sneak nips of Kessler from a thermos during their lunch break. Treating every operator like a criminal before they even touch the levers of a Link-Belt or a Grove just kills the trust between the crew and the super. When morale hits rock bottom, guys stop communicating, and that’s far more dangerous than a lack of testing. We need to get back to the old-school way of holding our own accountable. If you’re a rigger or a signalman and you see your operator is off, you shut the lift down right there. You don’t wait for a device to tell you what your eyes alredy see. I’d rather have a tight-knit crew that checks in on each other than a turnstile that makes us feel like we're walking into a prison yard every morning. If a guy is showing up that loaded, there are deeper issues with the culture on that specific site that a machine simply won't fix.

I’ve been on sites where we didn't do testing and honestly, it only takes one close call to change your mind. I once saw a guy clipping a fence with a skid steer because he was hungover and couldn't focus. For me, what worked was just keeping a small, tight crew where we actually knew each other. If I can't look a guy in the eye and know he's solid, he’s not getting on the equipment. Those big corporate sites with zero personal connection are where this stuff slips through the cracks. No amount of paperwork beats a foreman who actually knows his guys.

Seen it all before. Back in the 70s, we had guys who thougt a 'liquid lunch' was part of the union contract, but you didn't see them stuck in a Manitowoc cab needing a ladder truck. If you couldn't handle your business, the old heads whould just drag you behind the trailer and handle it ourselves. No breathalyzer needed when a swift kick to the rear did the job. Nowadays, these kids think they're invisible up there. I don't care about the 'privacy' of a drunk—if you're swinging iron over my head, I want to know you're sober. The problem isn't the testing, it's the lack of shame these days.

While the discussion has largely focused on the ethics of surveillance, we shoud realy be looking at the technical reality that even the most sophisticated Load Moment Indicators or Zone Protection Systems cannot compensate for the severe neuro-muscular latency inherent in ethanol intoxication. Having studied the schematics of the newer Wolffkran luffing jibs, I’ve noted that the precision required for complex "blind" picks necessitates a level of cognitive proprioception that just isn't there when someone is impaired. I'm curious if anyone has seen specs for biometric ignition interlocks integrated directly into the CAN bus architecture, as that seems more technically sound than relying on a foreman's subjective observation.

Update: That point about 'keeping a tight crew' really resonated. I talked to my foreman about building better trust, and it definitely helped the atmosphere. Still, I can't shake the Chicago story about the rigger and the rebar—it's scary how fast things turn. Do you think peer accountability is actually enought to replace random testing?