Blog

You’ve just invested a large sum of money on a new piece of equipment, and now you have to consider paying out more for optional safety equipment. That follow-on purchase can be a hard pill to swallow, but there are some very good reasons to take your medicine.

Americans tend to think of Sweden as a snow-covered mecca in northern Europe—a place where people cross country ski to work, wear cable-knit sweaters, and eat lots of meatballs. But the Swedish people have made many weighty contributions to the global society—everything from the centigrade thermometer (Anders Celsius was Swedish) to dynamite (Alfred Nobel), the universal pipe wrench, the zipper, and cars such as Volvo. Vision Zero is among their latest contributions, and it reflects a unique point of view on road safety.

In 1799, French army engineers discovered the Rosetta Stone, a slab of rock that created a revolution in archeology by helping Egyptologists crack the code of hieroglyphics. Today’s modern fleet owners, insurers, and government officials would love to come across a similar tell all to help them crack the code of vehicle crash costs. Instead, they are faced with a dizzying array of agencies, measurement standards, and definitions that make it nearly impossible to answer a critical, but complex, question: How much, on average, does it cost when the operator of a fleet vehicle gets into a crash with another person or thing?

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.

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.

With deadlines to meet, customers to please, and budgets that can often be tight at best, safety can easily take a back seat to cheaper, faster short-cuts. Anyone who has ever dealt with the aftermath of an on-the-job accident or fatality will be the first to attest that not only should safety be in the front seat, it should be the driver.

New highway regulations in Texas have fleet managers looking for ways to equip specific heavy haul trucks with roll-stability systems and blind spot protection. The new regulations, as laid out in Texas Senate Bill 1524, address heavier oversize and overweight intermodal vehicles that carry oceangoing or international trade containers within 30 miles of a port of entry or international bridge. SB 1524 mandates that roll-stability systems and blind spot protection be installed on these vehicles as a precondition of receiving an operating permit from the Texas Department of Transportation.

Safety is paramount to the manufacturers of heavy duty equipment and automobiles today. Innovation is driving the car industry to go well beyond the simplicity of seat belts and automatic brake systems. More and more, advanced technological systems are becoming common place in our cars, trucks, and transportation equipment.

Following a recent tradeshow, conversations revolved around street sweepers and the hazards that come with them. In an effort to highlight the safety issues that are associated with this common piece of equipment, we wanted to take a moment to draw attention to the safety solutions that are available.

The National Highway Safety Traffic Administration attributes 94 percent of all crashes to human error, mostly associated with recognition and decision errors. Research and testing done so far on autonomous vehicles point toward a much safer world. But making vehicles smart enough to navigate an incredibly complex world is not happening overnight.