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TJ Transport is one of four companies that has been instrumental in producing a new Institute of Road Transport Engineers (IRTE) vehicle rollover guide, which aims to inform drivers how to prevent these incidents. Road safety is something that TJ is hugely passionate about, so when the chance to be involved in such a project arose, TJ was keen to be part of it.
There are several thousand Large Goods Vehicle (LGV) and Public Service Vehicle (PSV) road traffic accidents reported in the UK every year, with studies indicating that around 5% of these involve a vehicle rollover. Although the proportion of rollover incidents is low, the outcomes are often devastating.
TJ’s Fleet Manager, Lee Downer, who has responsibility for vehicle safety and compliance, sits on the Mineral Products Association’s Transport Committee, along with representatives from major players in the transport and aggregates industries including Cemex, Hanson, Tarmac and Aggregate Industries and others.
The committee gathers quarterly to discuss a range of things related to safety in the transport industry such as current legislation, FORS developments, direct vision topics and upcoming legislation that may affect large goods vehicles.
It was at one of these meetings in late 2019 that the topic of a new guide was raised after Hanson was approached by the IRTE (the Society of Operations Engineers’ specialist sector for road transport engineers) who were keen to get a new guide produced.
The existing guide, which was published over 10 years ago, was out of date and was very technical, which made it difficult for anyone without an engineering background to read and understand. The IRTE wanted a new guide that would be less technical and much easier for the average person to utilise.
Representing the Society of Operational Engineers, John Eastman asked for volunteers to form a working group to produce this guide. Lee volunteered along with representatives from Aggregate Industries, Cemex and Hanson. These four companies were later invited to officially sponsor the guide.
They got to work, planning the guide’s new format including new wording and descriptive images, but the pandemic descended soon after, which slowed the proceedings down. Over the next year, the group met remotely when they could, pulling the content together, deciding on the layout and design and finalising the format for printing.
The guide was completed last month and is now in the process of being printed. Each of the four sponsors secured funding to help cover the printing costs and it is hoped that the guide will be distributed far and wide to inform drivers of how to prevent vehicle rollovers.
The guide could also be used as a training document for new drivers. Topics covered include: why rollovers occur, risk factors, rollover prevention, future developments, legislation and references.
Lee said:
“When the opportunity arose to be involved in this project, I jumped at the chance. Vehicle rollovers are a real threat to driver and road safety, so anything we can do to help reduce the number of incidents is hugely worthwhile. Being part of the working group was great and despite the additional challenges COVID presented, we’ve achieved our goal and the end result is an attractive, easy to follow guide for all.”
To obtain a copy of the guide please visit www.soe.org.com
Please get in touch for further information or read on to discover some of the other safety initiatives TJ is involved in:
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