Magic Glasses: Three Points of Contact
- Feb 5
- 3 min read
At first glance, climbing onto a truck or Hiab deck looks routine. Put on the Magic Glasses, and you start to see what actually controls the risk. The difference is not care or experience. It is whether safe access was designed in from the start.
Quick Scene-Setter
A Hiab arrives on site to load or unload. The operator needs to access the deck to rig, unrig, or check restraints. There is no fixed access. The step looks manageable. The job needs to keep moving.
At first glance, it looks fine.
What Most People See
Most people see:
A short climb onto the deck
An experienced operator who has done this many times
A task that takes less than a minute
The assumption is simple: “If you are careful, it will be okay.”
What the Magic Glasses Show You
With the Magic Glasses on, the focus shifts from the task to how the body is exposed to impact.
You start to notice:
Only one or two points of contact during access
Wet or dusty decks, uneven steps, or loose gear underfoot
Hands occupied with remotes, chains, or slings
No controlled way to recover from a slip
A fall from deck height is not minor. It is a direct transfer of force into the hips, knees, shoulders, and spine.
Three points of contact are not a slogan. It is a basic engineering control that reduces the likelihood of a fall and limits injury severity when something goes wrong.
What the Magic Glasses Also Show You – Design Decisions
Once you look closer, this stops being a worker issue. It becomes a design and procurement issue.
Some Hiab and truck builds clearly consider:
How operators will access the deck
Where hands and feet naturally go
Whether three points of contact are possible without improvising
Other builds do not.
Corners get cut during specification and build:
No proper steps or access systems
Handholds positioned for transport, not climbing
Layouts that force stepping over or reaching awkwardly
The result is predictable. The PCBU saves a small amount upfront, and the operator absorbs the cost over time.
That cost shows up as:
Repeated minor slips
Hard landings that jar the body
Cumulative wear that becomes accepted as normal work discomfort
Worst case, it's a hip replacement or knee. 😦
This is not about poor behaviour. It is a design choice playing out across a working lifetime.
The Controls That Matter
Controls that genuinely reduce harm:
Design deck access into the truck and Hiab build
Provide steps, ladders, or platforms that allow three points of contact at all times
Keep climbing paths clear of chains, slings, and restraints
Treat deck access as a regular task, not an exception
Climbing onto the deck is not ideal. But when it cannot be avoided, safe access must be part of the solution, not left to experience or balance.
The best solution is elimination:
Rig from the ground
Pre-rig the load
Keep the rigging on for when you lift the load off
Magic Glasses Checklist – Three Points of Contact
Can I pre-rig and eliminate the height
Can I maintain three points of contact for the entire climb?
Is the surface wet, dusty, or uneven?
Am I stepping over a load restraint or loose gear?
Was this access method designed or improvised?
Would a slip result in an impact on the hip or spine?
Has this risk been normalised because it is familiar?
Falls from truck decks injure experienced operators every year.
The difference is rarely carelessness. It is whether the risk was engineered out or designed in.
Three points of contact only work when the truck allows.
The Magic Glasses change the question from“Can I climb up there?” to “Who decided this was an acceptable way to do it, every day, for years?”
That is where safer outcomes really start.
Magic Glasses: The magic glasses come from the reality of - when I look at my books, I don't see a problem. But when my accountant looks at the books, it's a whole different story. He must have a special set of glasses.
As PCBU's, Officers and Workers, we have an obligation to learn what we are up to and the risks. Our actions and the standards we accept also affect those around us. This magic glasses post is made to help others see what we see.
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