Each of us at Standfast has been asked at one time or another about our competition in the tank-truck fall protection market. Most times these questions concern handrail systems, however we are occasionally asked about cable systems, also known as bi-line systems. Seemingly the lesser-known alternative and certainly at the very bottom of the fall protection hierarchy, bi-line systems are, at best, a very questionable option for providing safety and protection to the most valuable resource any trucking company has: its drivers.
Bi-line systems are basically comprised of two steel cables that are attached to anchor points on each side of the tank. There are variations of this product, but typically the cable length on both sides of the tank is that of the tank itself and, in theory, allows a driver to tether-in with a belt that has a long steel lanyard or lanyards, depending on the type and manufacturer of the system itself. The belt lanyard or lanyards are attached to the cables affixed to the tank. There are several glaring concerns with this system that should be seriously considered by anyone evaluating practical fall protection solutions. First, who installs a fall protection system at foot level? Both the tank cable and the lanyard serve as nothing more than trip hazards. Another concern should be the length of the belt lanyard compared to the height of the driver. There is tremendous risk to the driver should they choose to remove the lanyard clasp from the tank cable to perform a task requiring the driver to reach or lean forward and they end up going over the edge, likely injured and hanging from the side of the tank. Moreover, the driver could be suspended by a single cable attached to a belt around their waste and lower back. In other words, the system, by default, would then serve as a poorly designed fall arrest system that would normally require a harness. In this scenario, even with a proper fall arrest system, the driver is put at risk and the tank is exposed to damage. Another undesirable characteristic is the slack in the lanyards.
We have been told by drivers whose businesses have used these types of systems that the lanyards are easily entangled on the hardware on the top of the tank itself, such as vapor recovery systems. One driver of a large petroleum company shared, “The cable almost took me down when it got caught on one of the hatch latches, I thought I was going over the side of the tank.” The cumbersome nature of these systems makes them easy to ignore and as a result, often not used by the driver. Why invest in a system that is unused, unsafe, and as a result, unreliable?