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Reminder: a triple action locker (popular in gyms) is not fool proof
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Sorry I feel the need to separate out a thread specifically to call out the use of triple action (tri-act) lockers (what are they?) after two recent discussions: one in the Two Belay Loops thread and the other in the auto belay lawsuit thread. They are commonly deployed in gyms. If this reminder makes some people double check the locker in their system on their future gym visits, the thread has served its purpose. The chance of a properly locked triple action locker to unlock by itself is extremely low. I will not claim 0% chance, but I believe if one truely understands how the tri-act locker works, they will agree that it will take a laboratory setting with deliberate manipulation to create a case. For how solid they are (once locked), unfortunately, they are not fool proof. On the contrary, I almost see more chances for their misuse. The tri-act locker has a distinct clicking sound when engaged. It does not take long for a frequent user to simply rely on hearing the sound as an indication of its proper engagement. It has happened to me that when I let my fingers go of the gate and hear a clicking sound, I look down only to see that the twist lock did not twist back (not locked) due to stickiness or even worse, the twist lock twisted back before the gate had the chance to catch so it actually remained open. I can also see the scenario where the gate gets caught on the belay loop and the locker stays on only because of the bite between the gate and the tongue. All of these misuse scenarios could happen. If the locker is not properly locked, it certainly can open and come off of the harness with some disturbance, giving people the false impression that the locker unlocked itself. These lockers are so common in gyms now -- fixed on auto belays and on belayer's end for top ropes. Did I hear some gyms make climbers clip in now too? Regardless, they are used probably hundreds of thousands of times every day across the country. Misuse cases are just a matter of time. Gyms are a distracting environment and people get subconciously complacent with the preconcieved perception of safety in gyms, so some safety measures often done outside (even if just out of nervousness) are neglected in the gym, such as self checks and buddy checks. Often times, chatting or simply just having fun, people forget to check. It happened to me sometimes. A sensor embedded locker could easily be the answer -- it beeps after a few seconds if not fully locked. It would work well in the gym because a tri-act locker's default mode is, well, locked. The technology is all there; just someone has to make it. Petzl, are you reading? Hope we don't have to wait long, but until then, please always remember to actually look down at the locker to double check. |
Mei pronounced as Maywrote:
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Ricky Harlinewrote: Ricky, you could have articulated your objection, rather than link to a stupid loud YouTube video. I get it, you wanted to say no. Why not just say it? Unless you really hate self check or buddy check, my guess is your strong objection is about the beep. (Isn't it ironic that you like that obnoxiously loud video?) Well, the point is, a sensor embedded tri-act locker, should be silent all the time because it's locked all the time except for the brief moment of one putting it on and taking it off the harness, which will not trigger the beep due to the preset delay. If it beeps, something is seriously wrong. The beep can save lives. |
Mei pronounced as Maywrote: Sorry, sounds cost prohibitive, gyms won’t buy it. Basically it’s like that calculation in Fight Club Besides, people will always figure out a new way to screw it up. |
Mei pronounced as Maywrote: I have some belay biners that show red if not all the way locked. Having both partners check that the belay biner is not showing red could be part of the partner check. Please do not put electronics in carabiners. Also, I think it such a system would have to beep when the battery is dying like a fire alarm for the same reasons a fire alarm does that. Sounds awful. |
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Mei, I know you do buddy checks outside, why not inside, every single time you tie in or lock in…? The fact movement/PG has captive belay devices is weird and i think encourages complacency. |
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Hey Mei, thanks for starting the topic. Let's get stuck in, as the Brits say. When a triple action locker snaps into place, the click is very distinctive. If it were caught on a belay loop, then the change in timbre (if not the missing click outright) ought to be enough to inform a climber they've misclipped. Secondly in my experience when a gate locks without contacting the nose (i.e. if held open), the spring should have enough force to push the mechanism into the nose when released. It is a one way lock, so you don't need to unlock it to close the gate. Note I said "ought to" and "should have". Obviously there are no certainties and I am more than welcome to be proven wrong. Yes, a sticky triple action locker might not have the gate close all the way — this would be a maintenance issue and the carabiner should be immediately swapped out and cleaned/oiled and inspected before being put back in service. |
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I say bring back screw gate carabiners. The good old fashioned KISS principal. They are way easier to use for folks with small hands and for those with arthritis/finger disabilities. |
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DMM Ceros. So good. No beep. If you are not using this with your grigri, live a little and get one. Get the triple action! |
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I don't care to articulate my objection, but this whole thing is stupid. Except the point that you should squeeze test your lockers, which should go without saying. |
Mei pronounced as Maywrote: Maybe just report the sticky gate to the staff. Take it off the rope and hand it in at the front desk claiming it's a huge liability. Gym must also cut all gear loops off the harnesses. What if someone clips into a gear loop by mistake. Just go bouldering... oh wait.... |
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I wouldn’t be surprised to see these in gyms soon. Common sense, good training, etc is never enough to eliminate the probability of human error. When litigation/money is at stake and where one incident could threaten a business’s existence, it’s not hard to imagine the use of such warning systems. That said… I never trust my gyms triple locking beaners, I always check and force my partners to check! I also enforce strict checks in the wild too. Complacency is a sneaky snake |
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I've had those types of biners misperform in exactly the ways mei describes. And I caught them every time... I think. Who knows how many times I didn't catch it, but nothing untoward happened? Certainly not me. Of course mei is reminding us all to check every time. This reminder is easier on the soul than finding your key belay biner or even tie-in biner, isn't locked and the gate is in fact open. I had a locker get stuck open in a top rope situation once and is was only by razor thin margin I was able to reassemble it. That was not a triple locker, it was something altogether different. But the point remains and that incident cemented the "urge to check" so strongly in me I always visually double check lockers, always always always. Sometimes twice in 10-minutes. It can happen, even with the little red thingie. Be diligent, is the caution I read in mei's words. |
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I like how we're faffing on about how triple-action lockers are unreliable or encourage complacency... y'all can't honestly say you've never forgotten to lock your screw gate? If you're looking for a "fool proof" system, a screw gate it is not. I mean, better systems breed better idiots, and all... guess what, I'm a huge idiot. I know I'm bad at locking my screw gates, so when it matters, I use auto-lockers. |
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The most important safety check is your awareness/focus and patience, without those you can't even rely on your other checks. Routine, repetition, and organization help with catching anomalies, but you still need to be in an aware and focused state, don't climb without it! Don't drive without it either for that matter! |
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I'm pulling out my COF (Crusty Old Fart) badge on this one. It seems to me that there is a spiraling tendency to inattention and complacency that is actually the result of trying to solve human failure problems with technology. The more agency we give to engineering solutions, the less likely---and in some cases less able---we are to attend to a diminishing but no less critical set of details. There is always going to be a human/device interface and that's where problems will occur. I think there can be a well-meaning kind of tunnel vision that tries to respond to some very immediate and specific problem by layering on even more technology, for example electronic beeping carabiners. The interesting question is whether or not there comes a time when the whole set-up becomes less safe than it had been. First of all, experience has shown that technology comes with unanticipated gotchas that only reveal themselves over time and sometimes have very serious consequences. Accidents are not only, in some cases, a side-effect of the mesmerizing aspects of technology, but also of the fact that technology creates a perception that folks with very little experience can be entrusted---with little and typically very abbreviated supervision---with mission-critical procedures because the technology handles all the details. We've just seen an example of this with the Mussy hook tragedy. In the gym I go to I've seen very young kids using the auto belays and in some cases giving each other top-rope belays, and I can't help but wonder whether they're truly ready to be left on their own for this. On top of this comes the nature of sport climbing, in which a "developer class" creates routes for the climbing population, which as a consequence is no longer fully independent and fully responsible for its own safety, and necessarily operates on faith that things have been done appropriately. An example of this appeared in a FB post recently, in which a relatively new climber plugged belay anchor gear into a flake marked with an "X," thinking, apparently, that the "developer class" was marking belay stances with "X's". Although this is a rather extreme case, it illustrates the extent to which faith-based attitudes can replace much more ordinary judgment. And I've seen comments on MP by climbers on trad routes castigating the first-ascensionists for not removing this or that loose feature. In their eyes, it is the job of the "developer" to properly curate the route. Don't get me wrong though, I'm not suggesting we get rid of all the lovely solutions that have evolved since I started climbing with Goldline ropes and hip belays. My rack is full of the latest gadgets and I have no interest in trading them in. But I think that we need to find ways to put some of the old-fashioned fear back into climbing, to get folks to realize that, happy-go-lucky as a day at the crag or gym may be, we are operating near a thin edge of tragedy, and we need to find mental attitudes that acknowledge this reality without fully killing the buzz. Of course, it is easy to argue for better education/mentoring; the devil is in the details. And without intending to be too critical, we have to understand that the commercial interests in climbing do not want to see customers frightened off. Still, there may be gestures we can make that will improve things without having to embed electronic circuits in carabiners. I've noticed that some parks are now requiring their users to watch videos on appropriate uses before being turned loose on the environment. And I don't see why climbing gyms in particular but also other administered climbing venues might not do something similar. I've also thought for some time (now polishing up my POM (Professor Of Mathematics) badge, that the vast majority of our instruction is flawed because it fails to illustrate how to do things wrong, it only shows how to do it right. For example, does the gym employee providing the typically cursory instruction on the use of autobelays illustrate what nose-clipping looks like and warn about its very consequential effects? Do they say that if you do this and don't die as a result, there's a good chance you'll never be whole again? I suspect not. |
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Integrating lessons on user-error is likely valuable. However if you were to go through all possible user errors, you might be in-class for hours and hours. Highlighting the most egregious errors would be helpful (similar to how back and Z clipping is explicitly explained). |
J Lwrote: Simple solution: don't try to do that---problem solved. And I'm not sure the objection is all that valid. Really, if something has so many failure modes that it would take hours and hours of class time to cover them, why the hell are we using it at all? Take the original situation with autobelays for example. There are really just three things to mention. (1) Forgetting to clip in at all. (2) Nose-hooking the carabiner. (3) Sticky sleeve mechanism. Hours and hours have not elapsed. |
rgoldwrote: Well auto belays are for brand new climbers so I'd say there's a lot more to touch on. I don't disagree with teaching them about the common failure modes but I think it comes down to culture more than a training checklist, sort of like your previous post touched on. People forget and get complacent either way, I think It's a cultural thing to work on, sort of like the mussy hook accident look at all the critique on here but they've obviously done that setup before and surely seen by others but never been told the hazard(where did they learn it in the first place), I see toproping through mussies all the time. That said I have a long video Playlist for beginner climbers, it would be less for autobelay users, but still fairly long? |
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I've always wondered how we as a society got to the point that allowed for people to film their offspring getting hurt, injured, or to be in imminent danger, and continue to film. At least on America's Funniest Home Videos, most of the time the camera would get dropped and a parent would help! But I digress... |
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basically agree with rgold. one of the (many) problems with this idea is that it is just going to result in people cramming their heads even futher up their asses. hard pass ... |
