Click Before You Dig — Vinny
Print this Article | Send to Colleague
By Mike Sullivan, Utility Safety Partners (with inspiration from Terry Emslie)
Wise words from Vinny, the Vintage Pipe!
The bucket teeth of an excavator damaged this ten and a half inch diameter section of vintage steel gas pipe several years ago in the Edmonton area. It appears to have been hit aggressively to cause the deep gouges that ruptured the pipe wall.
The Canadian Common Ground Alliance’s 2021 Damage Information Reporting Tool (DIRT) Report notes that 29% of all damages to buried energy and utility assets across Canada did not include a locate request to a provincial notification centre. Almost 3,400 damages — over 13 per day — without a locate request.
Why does this keep happening?
It doesn’t make sense and there is no excuse.
A person can submit a locate request 24-7-365 anywhere in Canada (and the United States) through ClickBeforeYouDig.com. The process is simple and takes the average person less than six minutes from start to finish.
Here’s a short list of some other things you can get done in five to six minutes:
- order a birthday cake online
- brew and drink a cup of coffee
- fold a load of towels
- clean a couple of windows using a life-changing window cleaner
- check Facebook
- check Instagram
- look up a recipe on Pinterest
- text message friends
- dust a room
- clean out your purse
- come up with a cheesy blog post because you can’t think of anything else to write about
- paint an urn
- check your bank balance online
- brew and drink another cup of coffee
Trust me. You have six minutes to spare.
