That's a really nice theory, but when an explosion happens when someone marked it wrong and there is a large crater and perhaps your dead, I'd doubt very much if the locate company is going to be blamed for miss marking that gas main, since where the crater is, the hole can be about 50 feet across or more. Like what happened in Iowa a couple decades ago when everyone involved was killed and the crater blew a hole in the field over a few hundred feet across and almost 50 feet deep. I think on that one the contractor was still to blame when it all came down in the end, even though he was dead along with all his crew, same for the NRCS people and also the gas pipeline crew there doing to marking and onsite along with all the equipment, pickups and everything else nearby that was consumed in the fireball and 100 foot tall fire plume till they finally got the gas shut off and then when things cooled down they removed what was left of the remains that were not consumed by the fire or what they could find of them anyhow spread across a few hundred acres of farmland.
The other side of the whole not to blame issue is this, how much is it going to cost in court to prove your not liable, because more than likely your going to have to hire an attorney and go to court to get out of not paying a huge sum of money when things really go south. I think the whole "when your close to the locate mark you should hand dig" is the phrase that will get you in court, and the last I was told, neither the locate company or the utility company care if it takes you a week or more hand digging every day to find their line so you don't hit it.
A smooth bucket doesn't mean much in my area, since the plow crew will lift up as they put in the line to clear obstacles like rocks, buried tree stumps and junk and the list is endless. I'm also not sure about your state, but mine its illegal to hook your locating equipment onto anyone's utilities so you can locate out "their" lines. That's private utilities and anyone uses or tampers with their boxes, peds or lines to hook onto without written permission, your breaking the law before you even start to dig. So I'm not sure where anyone thinks they can just hook their stuff up to locate these lines themselves and do it legally, because you can't where I live, now does everyone do it, the answer is yes, if caught doing it, not sure, I don't know of anyone who has been caught in the act before.
There is one more issue nobody every talks about, all the dead and abandoned lines still in the ground, seems phone companies are the worst, every time they have a line go dead or bad, they just plow in a new line and leave the old one in the ground, so there are many areas I dig in, where there is only one "live" line, but up to a dozen lines marked, you can decide which one is the live line, but since they have such crappy maps, the locate company marks them all, now go start hand digging to avoid them all is the jest of it in my area, not to mention all the times they have been hit and repaired, many of the older repair guys will coil a loop of wire so when the hole settles the loop can take the stretch out of the line and not break it, so if your digging with a smooth bucket and you hook the loop by following the line with the bucket, you still hit the line that was marked and you can again pay for the repair.
Now lets discuss fiber, there is supposed to be a tracer or marker strip buried shallower above the line, but when that line tears as its being put in and there is a stretch a few feet to several hundred feet long there is no tracer installed, nobody goes back and puts that in, now you have an non traced portion of fiber in the ground you can figure out where it is, same principles apply about lifting the plow up and going over obstacles and also where they bore under things like creeks, gas mains, roads and everything else, there can be gaps in their tracer marks in those locations as well and we've found loops buried at those junctions in fiber too to allow for stretch, which they claim is never done............yea about that claim.
Not sure anyone has had this next issue happen, but when something is hit, and everyone shows up, the marking crew will again hook up their locating equipment and start to remark everything, so you need to take photo's before, during and after something your digging near to prove the marks were off in the first place and you need someone onsite of your crew to make sure nothing is remarked after the fact when it was marked wrong the first time. Many of the locating companies are given orders as standard procedure to go remark the lines and do it right the second time around so they don't have to pay the bill, after all it pretty hard to prove in court when the line was marked correctly, I've even been told by them, they were instructed to mark the line, then knock dirt over their "new" marks to make it look like the second set of lines where there first, after all, when your digging, you literally cover up the marks left the first time around.
With fiber anything goes for costs, the courts have not yet caught up with the technology to be able to put a hard cost for repairs on those YET. Older wires they have, legally in my state anyhow, they can only charge a certain fee to repair those, but with fiber, I'd guess it could be hundreds of thousands of dollars if they want to, and with that much money at stake, you'll bet your a** there will lawyers show up in court to attempt to collect it.
So with no cap in the potential liability involving fiber and the op only charging a few hundred to maybe a few thousand dollars, to me the risk is too high, couple that with if there is an incident and something gets hit, you'll have a claim to deal with and possible much higher insurance rates or worse yet, being cancelled completely and then what? it goes on your record and nobody will insure the new guy in business insurance.................so your done before you even hardly start?? And this is a good idea to who?? And many are arguing about how its safe to dig with a smooth bucket near fiber or anything else and how good of a job a good operator needs to be with his machines, I'm thinking many are missing the whole point to this discussion completely.
But maybe we should talk about the only one with any commons sense in the whole equation, the customer, who's wanting things in writing, a bid to do the job, so if something does go south, his butt is covered completely and he's in the clear of it all, and has a cap on his out of pocket costs and everything is in writing and signed and dated, my vote is for him, the only one with enough brains to cover his own a**, he's the guy who's got it figured out in the first place and should be a very successful business owner if he's not already, maybe someone should be taking notes on how it should be done and he seems to be the only one with it all figured out, so I'll have to vote in favor of him being the smart one, he can even get it done so much cheaper than renting the machines and doing the work himself and save all the liability to boot, he's even got it figured out if he cries somewhat about not having any money someone will feel sorry for him and coming running to his aid.........for virtually nothing. I take that back maybe he's running for congress and now he's just practicing his campaign speech on for size.
Maybe the op should contact his banker and insurance company and run this whole deal by them first, and see what he's told, if neither will tell him anything, I'd first start by looking for another banker and insurance company and go from there.
I am not exactly new to the industry but I am new to figuring pricing as I now own my own business. I am starting to see that my pricing is usually a lot less that if someone would go to the rental store and rent the equipment... and then they would still have to do the work on top of that! I appreciate your input!!!
