There’s a disturbing trend in the elevator industry that, for the most part, is going unnoticed and apparently, unchecked.

In light of the increasing number of elevator inspection violations showing up during State mandated elevator inspections as of late, certain elevator companies have decided to take a proactive approach to solving this problem. According to provisions in the majority of recent elevator maintenance contracts, they (elevator service companies) plan on hiring their own “in house” elevator inspectors to witness State mandated elevator safety tests, and perform routine safety inspections. This practice is akin to the cook at your local diner hiring his own health inspector, or the contractor who just put a $15,000 roof on your house hiring his own roofing inspector. The benefits are enormous – for the contractor or cook, of course.

During the 2002 Session, The State of Florida adopted changes to Senate bill 399.061 which significantly affected the method of all elevator inspections. These changes became effective June 5, 2002 and require all elevator inspections to be performed by a certified elevator inspector annually. Florida Statutes Chapter 399.061(1)(a) (“Elevator Safety Act”) states, All elevators or other conveyances subject to this chapter must be annually inspected by a certified elevator inspector or by a municipality or county under contract with the division pursuant to s.399.13. What the bill does NOT say is, All elevators or other conveyances subject to this chapter must be annually inspected by the elevator service company’s preferred elevator inspector.

With elevator maintenance companies becoming more and more focused on “the bottom line”, elevator owners are now left holding the bag. Maintenance on elevators is becoming more sporadic as a result of route mechanics being inundated with service calls on equipment they seldom get to visit. The long of the short of it is, mechanics have more “units” on their routes than they are physically able to visit in any given month. As a result of having more units than they are capable of visiting, maintenance suffers. As a result of infrequent maintenance, mechanics are getting more and more service calls DUE to lack of maintenance. As a result of an increasing amount of service calls, mechanics are physically unable to perform routine maintenance.

This is a never-ending circle that negatively effects the building owners and the riding public as a whole. Safety should never be compromised in the pursuit of profits, but unfortunately, this is exactly what is happening.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported 68 elevator-related deaths from 1992-2003 among people using elevators while at work, an average of six passenger deaths per year. These included supervisors/managers, clerks/stock handlers, janitors/cleaners and their supervisors, plus a wide variety of other occupations. Almost all the fall deaths involved falls into elevator shafts, including 18 deaths where an elevator door opened and there was no elevator car. The “caught in/between” and “struck by” deaths often involved getting caught in the elevator door or between the elevator and door or shaft.

Information on passenger injuries and deaths is reported through the CPSC National Electronic Injury Surveillance System. During the nearly 10 years covered, the CPSC reported 56 non-work related deaths of elevator passengers – about six per year – in 21 states and the District of Columbia: California (2 deaths), District of Columbia (5), Florida (4), Illinois (3), Indiana (1), Louisiana (1), Maine (1), Michigan (3), Minnesota (3), Missouri (1), North Carolina (2), New Jersey (4), New York (12), Ohio (2), Pennsylvania (4), Rhode Island (1), South Dakota (1), Tennessee (1), Texas (2), Virginia (1), West Virginia (1), and Wisconsin (1). Thirteen of the deaths involved children age 10 or younger.

During this same period, the CPSC reported 24 non-work related deaths of escalator passengers in 12 states and the District of Columbia – about two per year. The states were Alabama (1 death), California (2), District of Columbia (3), Florida (1), Illinois (3), Maryland (1), Minnesota (3), Nevada (1), New York (3), Ohio (1), Virginia (1), Washington (2), and Wisconsin (2). The eight “caught in/between” deaths usually resulted after clothing became trapped at the bottom or top of an escalator or between a stair and escalator sidewall; seven of the 16 fall deaths were from head injury. Four of the fall deaths occurred due to falling off the escalator while riding the escalator siderails. In 1994, the Consumer Product Safety Commission estimated that there were 7,300 escalator and 9,800 elevator injuries requiring hospitalization (CPSC 1998, Cooper 1997). The data was based on a nationwide survey of 90 hospitals.

With all of this data publicly available, somehow the elevator service companies feel it is in the best interest of the public to employ the services of their own inspector of choice to ensure their customers’ elevators or escalators are safe. If a building owner allows his or her elevator maintenance company to decide who performs their elevator inspections, are they getting the most scrutinous inspections available, or is their responsibility being circumvented in order to obtain a “clean inspection”? The answer to that couldn’t be any more obvious.

Chapter 399.025(b) (Elevator Safety Act) states, […The elevator owner is responsible for the safe operation, proper maintenance, and inspection and correction of code deficiencies of the elevator after a certificate of operation has been issued by the department..]. Not only is it morally wrong to let elevator maintenance companies inspect their own equipment, it is apparently legally wrong as well.

The majority of independent, third-party elevator inspectors are unbiased when it comes to performing their duties, and will almost always cite the elevator contractor for deficiencies on their elevator inspection reports to ensure the safety of the riding public. If the practice of allowing elevator maintenance companies to secure the services of an elevator inspector goes unchecked, the statistics presented earlier in this letter will surely rise.

Can we allow this to continue? In good conscience, I don’t see how we can.