Trench Collapses in Toronto
Why do we continue to see these day in and day out
https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/video?clipId=2204030&binId=1.3378530&playlistPageNum=1
Comments (10)
The main issue and the most alarming part is that the work was on someone's property. This is generally where the lowest bid wins. They do not put in any pricing for safety and usually rent small equipment with an inexperienced team.
Most of my experience with trenching is that fact that it take to long to set up protections when the budget and time are restraints to the oversight. Shoring, sloping, or shielding are a must. When I was part of the bidding process, I would not ever accept bids from my contractors that didn't have trench protection in their proposals.
I have been seeing a lot of material on trenches lately so I decided to look into it. From the information I found, trench collapses have been an issue for years. It seems that the leading cause is inadequate cave-in protection (shoring, sloping, or shielding). Twenty-one people died in trench collapses during 2020. Equipment World put together a mega-thread of trench collapse news: https://www.equipmentworld.com/death-by-trench/article/14969555/special-report-death-by-trench-the-business-and-human-cost-of-trench-collapse-fatalities