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A new report by Wards Intelligence provides some very interesting data on truck accidents, and tries to get below the surface to understand the reasons why such accidents are trending upward. Wards’ 2018 Commercial Vehicle Safety Report, “Who, Where & Why of Truck Safety Performance,” takes great pains to find the most up-to-date public and proprietary data sources to try to form a picture of the factors that caused truck-accident related fatalities to continue to increase after briefly decreasing in 2016.

Earlier this month our PRECO team went to India to showcase at this year’s International Mining & Machinery Exhibition (IMME). The exhibition is a four-day event held at the New Town Eco Park in Kolkata, India, with over 300 exhibitors, 6,000-plus business visitors, and over 11 countries representing including Australia, China, and Italy.

PRECO Electronics® has been designing and manufacturing short range radar sensors since 2001.  Extensive testing of these sensors is required to validate operation.  Older versions of the PreView® Radar sensors had a short detection range (<10 meters) and the PRECO engineering team has been able to do much of the performance testing on an indoor test range.  The latest generation of PreView® sensors, such as the Sentry™, have a much longer detection range of 30 meters, necessitating a different testing area.

For decades, fleets have considered the staggering cost of collisions as unavoidable as death and taxes. These days, as new technologies alert drivers to potential collisions—and, increasingly, take complete control of the vehicle to avoid the collision altogether—fleet owners may well be wondering if there will come a day when collision costs become marginal.

The occurrence of accidents happening with equipment whose radar based object detection systems have been disabled are on the rise. Though many workers and operators feel they can rely on passive equipment like camera/monitor combos and mirrors to guide them on a worksite active systems, like PRECO’s PreView® Radar technology, is the only viable way for an operator to be truly aware of their surroundings.

Radar sensors are quickly becoming a part of many people’s daily commute to and from work.  From Blind Spot Monitoring (BSM) to Rear Cross Traffic Alert (RCTA) to Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC), radar sensors are moving from luxury to economy models of consumer vehicles.  There are now over a million of these sensors being produced annually.  Because of this widespread automotive usage, medium- and heavy-duty industries are adopting radar sensors for their blind spot monitoring and collision avoidance needs, too.

If you have been driving for ten or more years, you are no doubt amazed to see the endless stream of driver assistance technologies being added to passenger cars. You can almost hear your parents grumbling, “In my day, people actually had to pay attention to where they were going!” Such mundane necessities are quickly becoming a thing of the past as drivers are learning to rely more and more on the technology that surrounds them and less and less on their own faculties. If drivers are safer as a result of new technology, then it’s all for the better. But, as a fleet manager, there is more at stake than safely getting from point A to point B.

Buy once, cry once.

You get what you pay for. 

These adages are often used to describe not only the price of an item but also the quality. Consumers often have to decide between a low-priced product that probably will not last long term and a higher-priced option that, odds are, will last for a long period of time. Much like consumers, industrial buyers must decide between the cheap safety solution and the more expensive safety solution.

A Brief History

Founded in 1947, PRECO Electronics has become a worldwide leader in heavy-duty safety innovation. PRECO patented the world’s first electronic backup alarm as a result of watching utility employees on dam sites. Ed Peterson, PRECO’s founder, noticed that accidents were frequently happening while heavy equipment was operating in reverse. The flaggers used at the time weren’t safe because the equipment blind spots were too massive.

PRECO Electronic's PreView Sentry™ has been recognized as one of the Top 100 New Products of 2017 by Construction Equipment.  Selected by the editorial staff, Construction Equipment Top 100 is the longest-running awards program of its kind in the industry and recognizes the most significant new products announced each year. PreView Sentry™ is the only collision avoidance solution recognized among the Top 100 new products.