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Safety Tips
1 min readThe Fall Clearance Calculation Your Crew Probably Gets Wrong
Tony DrovdalJune 18, 2026
Free fall + deceleration + harness stretch + safety margin. If your team is just clipping in to something solid, read this.
The formula
Total fall clearance = Free fall distance + Deceleration distance + Harness stretch + Safety margin (typically 3 ft)
A standard 6-foot lanyard on a 6-foot worker tied off at foot level needs ~18.5 feet of clearance below the anchor. Most second-story walking surfaces do not have it.
The fixes
- Anchor higher — D-ring level or above cuts free-fall to zero.
- Use a self-retracting lifeline (SRL) — shrinks free-fall to under 2 feet.
- Calculate before you climb — every site, every day.
We teach this in our Fall Protection course with the actual gear your team uses. Bring your harness; we will inspect it too.
Want this implemented on your site?
We do this work in person across South Dakota. A short call usually clarifies whether it's a half-day audit or a full program build.
