Quarry operator and haulage provider, Smiths & Sons (Bletchington), has introduced Brigade safety systems as a part of its standard specification for all new vehicles.
Based in county Oxfordshire, England, the company has taken a proactive approach towards ensuring the safety of vulnerable road users.
Smiths’ has specified Brigade’s Backeye360, Sidescan systems and mobile digital recording devices for its entire tipper fleet going forward.
“‘In the past we have been actively involved in vehicle safety days around [the city of] Oxford and we were also involved in the launch of the Mineral Product Associations’ cycle safety scheme. Smiths is very proactive when it comes to vulnerable road user safety and having trialled various vehicle camera systems, we were the first tipper operator to fit the Backeye360 system,” says Paul Needle Smiths’ transport manager.
Brigade’s Backeye360 is an intelligent camera monitor system that assists low-speed manoeuvrability, providing the driver with an all-round view of the vehicle in a single image on the in-cab monitor. The system simultaneously blends and stitches the live images from four ultra-wide cameras together to produce a single birds eye view image, effectively eliminating blind spots. These images are then recorded on to Brigade’s new MDR-404-500, four-channel mobile digital recording device. Fitted with a 500GB hard-drive, and built-in GPS, the device has the ability record up to 1164 hours of footage from the Backeye360 camera system.
In addition, Smiths & Sons has fitted Brigade’s Sidescan obstacle detection kit to its fleet. The four-sensor system is fitted along the bottom of the cab on the nearside, and working in conjunction with a Backchat speaking alarm, the system provides an audible warning, alerting both the driver and the vulnerable road user to a potential hazard when the vehicle is turning or manoeuvring at low speed.
