Reversing safely
June 1st 2005 With over two million people working in Britain’s construction industry it is the country’s biggest. It is also one of the most dangerous. Vehicles and mobile plant are a major hazard – a site traffic system, if one exists at all, is at best rudimentary and machines often approach unexpectedly giving false clues as to approach direction. Operators obliged to reverse their machine generally have a severely restricted field of view and habitually pose the greatest hazard of all. Prior to the arrival of the now widely available package of reverse-in-safety systems operators nearly always reversed their machines blind. The cost of this reversing recklessness was one out of four major causes of fatalities on construction sites.
During the last thirty years the availability of reversein- safety systems has progressed from absolute zero to the now comprehensive package of reversing alarms to warn the unseen and unwary behind the machine together with CCTV, radar and ultrasonic devices and transponders to assist the operator to see and detect anything in the blind area. Despite these devices being freely available however, there are still some operators out there who stubbornly refuse to equip their machines. Happily, these are a dwindling number in the face of those operators who have learned the hard way the cost of this false economy. Swingeing fines of £500 000 under the Health & Safety at Work Act, plus all the claims for compensation from the victim’s family have driven home every operator’s responsibility to operate a safe working environment.
The International Standards Organisation (ISO) at its recent meeting in Beijing made a Resolution to update ISO-9533 to include the latest technology in reversing alarms, particularly the newest broadband sound (bbstek) based reversing alarms. These address the problem of noise pollution caused by traditional narrowbandalarms by providing an equally effective warning at reduced decibels with a clearly audible but acceptable ‘Shhh….shhh…’ sound.
Additionally, broadband sound is instantly and accurately locatable which provides a massive safety benefit over narrowband alarms whose sound can bounce off any reflective surface before it reaches the listener’s ear and thus give a completely false indication of direction. It is arguable that narrowband alarms are for this reason intrinsically unsafe and that broadband should be adopted in future for all audible warning applications. A number of major international companies including the Tarmac Group and Aggregate Industries for example have already gone ‘global’ on the fitment of broadband based reversing alarms.
Further confirmation of broadband’s (bbs-tek) efficacy was the recent award by the US Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) to Brigade Electronics of first prize in this year’s Noise Management Systems Award. This follows Brigade’s receiving the Noise Abatement Society’s 2003 Award for Innovation.
Messrs H.J.Banks of Newcastle-on-Tyne’s Open Day on 26 May gave an astonishing demonstration of what determination to reduce site noise can achieve given the will. The broadband reversing alarm was said to have made the biggest single contribution to this overall noise reduction.
ISO is also close to publishing a new International Standard (ISO-16001) for earthmoving machines entitled ‘Hazard Detection Systems & Visual Aids’ which will cover all the above-mentioned aids to the operation. With these two international standards recently updated the industry can look forward to a very much safer, and less noisy, working environment.
Brigade Electronics was established in 1976 and is market leader in reversing safety systems. The company’s reputation is built upon the quality and reliability of both its products and its service and support. Brigade is working towards BS EN ISO 9001:2000.
Contact details: Brigade Electronics, Brigade House, The Mills, Station Road, South Darenth, Kent.
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