Quick hitch – management and safe use

Summary

Across the construction industry the detachment of the bucket on quick hitches (QHs) is responsible for 13 per cent of all accidents investigated on excavators. Following a near miss on the Olympic Park, a common standard was developed for the safe use of QHs which was adopted by all contractors. This resulted in an elimination of accidents involving QHs on the Park. This paper describes one contractor’s lessons learned on use of QHs on the Park.