Carmarthenshire County Council will be improving the safety of its fleet operators of 28 waste and recycling vehicles, as well as the general public, by installing the latest reversing aid technology, Reaclear, which will reduce the risk of reversing accidents.
“Like many parts of the country we have experienced a significant increase in housing development and that is leading to more restricted access. There is more traffic, more parked cars and more people, and our drivers are operating 26t refuse trucks in even tighter spaces,” said Shaun Lynch, Waste Operations Manager at Carmarthenshire County Council.
“There have been incidents in other authority areas with fatalities that have been caused by reversing vehicles and we want to avoid that happening in Carmarthenshire. We have experienced an increase in vehicle damage, which nearly always occurs when the vehicles are reversing,” he continued.
Reaclear is the latest innovation from Innovative Safety Systems Ltd (ISS) and is a preventative reversing device that works by ensuring that every reverse manoeuvre is ‘authorised’ before it occurs.
Explaining how Reaclear works, Gavin Thoday, Director at ISS, says: “The reversing assistant carries a hand-held device that also acts as a two-way radio, and once it is safety to manoeuvre he or she presses the transmit button. This lets the driver know it is safe to reverse. If the vehicle is reversed without first receiving a signal, an alarm sounds in the cab and LED warning lights start to flash. A message and video clip is also sent to the transport office to determine if further action is required.”
Reaclear is not the only ISS device used by Carmarthenshire County Council, which has already introduced on its waste and recycling vehicles a range of safety technology from ISS, including camera recording systems, reversing radar and Cyclear.
ISS designs, supplies and maintains vehicle safety and efficiency equipment, most of which is manufactured in the UK. Its product range includes Cyclear™ (Cyclist Safety Warning Device), Reaclear, 360 Vehicle Camera Systems, Hard Disk Recording, Remote Footage Download Systems, reversing radar and vehicle-tracking systems.
