• PersnickityPenguin@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    Logging is actually a very unsafe and dangerous activity. Logging actually has a pretty high injury and fatality rate.

    Landfills probably less so, but they really don’t have very many jobs. You’ve got a couple of guys who maybe work the weigh stations doing paperwork, and then a few heavy equipment operators.

    Really any job that includes operating heavy machinery with the potential to kill people really shouldn’t be done by 16-year-olds.

    • ConfirmingMoose@reddthat.com
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      1 year ago

      I lived in an area that had a huge logging industry that eventually became one dude, one machine, and truck that comes and hauls them off to the port. But I was there just after the full mechanization and automation of the industry. So the old timers were still around.

      And a lot of those dudes were named things like “three fingered Jack” and “one armed Rick” and “Lefty” … all from industrial logging accidents for a village of like 500 people.

    • Jack@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      operating heavy machinery with the potential to kill people really shouldn’t be done by 16-year-olds.

      14 year olds can get drivers licenses in South Dakota (source, which of course requires either scripting to view the text or opening the page source).

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Holy shit… my daughter is 13 and I wouldn’t want her behind a steering wheel. Not at her maturity level. But then I also think the drinking age should be 16 and the driving age 18 because a lot of young people get in car crashes due to not understanding what alcohol does to them.

      • PersnickityPenguin@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        I could too as a farm boy in oregon back in the 90s.

        Its a far cry from operating a log truck or servicing sawmill machinery. Which requires years of experience.