Endless Scaffolding in Midtown

You are under scaffolding all the time in Midtown...

I often wonder about scaffolding accidents. Let me check the internet (this is from last year):

Suspended about 14 stories above Broadway in Lower Manhattan just before noon yesterday, a construction worker suddenly felt the scaffolding rig under his feet slip away. But he did not fall far.

Cory Conover for The New York Times

A construction worker looked for a light Tuesday after he escaped injury in the accident.

He was wearing a lifeline, a cable suspended from the roof independent of the scaffold and clamped to a harness around his legs and shoulders, which caught him as the rig slipped.
He crawled to safety on a terrace on the 14th floor, a fire official said. He made his way to the street, and minutes later stepped uninjured out of an ambulance, pulled a cigarette from his pocket and fumbled for a lighter.
“Somebody give this man a light,” yelled a bystander from the crowd of onlookers. Someone did, and the construction worker, who would not identify himself, took a long drag.
“I’m O.K.,” he said. “A little excited.”
After a spate of scaffolding accidents that have resulted in five deaths this year, officials called yesterday’s mishap an example of what happens when construction workers and site supervisors follow safety guidelines.
Through Nov. 1, there were 19 scaffolding accidents this year, some of which resulted in injuries, compared with 11 last year and 5 in 2004, a spokeswoman for the Buildings Department said.
“There’s a big difference between doing things the wrong way and doing things the right way, and it shows,” said Robert Guerrerio, president of RSG Caulking and Waterproofing, which employed the worker at the construction site, for a residential building going up at Leonard Street and Broadway.