Usually the techs are not supposed or allowed to climb ladders in the dark.
Sometimes they do , but they could get hurt pretty easily, it is easy enough to get hurt in daytime when you can see.
Many times you see them using ladders without the proper footing devices for uneven surfaces. Ladder foot levelers are not even stocked in many locations. OSHA fines are a joke,Wc pays very little, and you cannot sue your employer, only a 3rd party. If you were drilling and the drill blew up and took off your hand, you could sue the drill manufacturer, but not your employer,even if the employer had known other drills of the type had exploded.
There are actually a lot of safety procedures that are supposed to be performed by the tech before they climb a pole or place a ladder on it. The people i work with have had poles break while on them, rotten bases. i remember one guy years back, that i met while working, he retired on disability, he had hooked through a EL riser, and lived, but the burn scars on his arms were horrifically disfiguring. When i started outside, i had to pass hook school.We had to climb poles with hooks to qualify for the job. I see a lot of poles,especially the end poles, that are not properly supported by guy wires. We were supposed to check at least one pole above and below our pole for safety hazards,since it could affect our climb.
Unless he had a working voltage tester,he should not have been climbing any poles .
A couple of citizens in Manhattan have been killed walking down the sidewalk due to EL leaks in the last couple of years. Jody Lane was one, over by 2nd ave and the old Italian bakery,

That is why I questioned whether it was OSP.

In NYC, 3rd party contracters do 90% of the install work and at least 80% outside plant work that does not require lots of skill & training.. maybe it's less in suburbs where they can't send just anybody into suburban houses or certain neighborhoods.

I see a ratio of about 10:1 contractor vehicles to branded vehicles not just around the depot, but all over brooklyn & queens where cablevision has network plant.

Around here.. there were all sorts of telco & cableco lines dangling down that were not part of active service or were, but have since been replaced.. yeah Brooklyn is a bit of a mess after Sandy.. still, if the rules for scrap & salvage were lifted, people would take the scrap metal & waste cables off the ground and sell them for the copper-- not that these bundles would net you much.. you probably could scrounge a few thrown about plastic deposit bottles and net even more money than that, lol.

If a year goes by and they (telco & cableco) don't clean it up.. the city could end up doing the work for them and bill them respectively.. that's what happens with other Quality of Life eyesores..

I will say this.. the 3rd party techs generally want to do the quickest job they can get away with as if they're paid by the job and not the hour so the quicker they get done, the more they can make. When I had an install apt. I was left to the last time slot, and then the guy didn't want to climb the pole to re-wire a cable because it was NIGHT TIME and the job would've taken too long.. granted, I thought the cable was already laid.. as it is in most bldgs. but the line was dead. Also, they charged me for install, and I live nearby one of the depots.. the nerve!

About 50% of the cables that were dangling in my area are now gone.. maybe by June they'll get around to the other 50%..

But let's not let facts get in the way of some good OOL bashing by a FiOS customer.