"They fall down and squash innocent and uninvolved people - surprisingly, surreptitiously, and with little or no warning - with disgusting regularity."

JiK, I agree that their existence - and their positioning- is scary but I've never heard of them falling (OFF the building?) and squashing anybody, much less with 'regularity'. Do you have a story on that?"

I'm in NYC and there have been several incidents of cranes falling in recent years, with a number of fatalities. And the last two days, the NY Times has also had articles about people killed or severely injured by falling tree limbs (or even entire trees). Apparently, it costs less to settle the resulting lawsuits than to hire and properly train enough people to check the trees and take preventative action before this happens. Another thing to be spooked about.

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