HIGH RISK ENVIRONMENTS

Due to the nature of mine sites, camps, and their remote locations, mining transfer vehicles often drive on roads that have numerous hazards. The road conditions can be risky: many are unpaved, wet weather can make them slippery, worsening potholes; dust can reduce visibility; streetlights are mostly non-existent; large vehicles and road trains are often part of the journey; wild animals such as large kangaroos or emus can charge across the road with little warning, forcing drivers to brake and manoeuvre to avoid a collision.

Drivers, also, can work across different vehicles, with different inbuilt safety systems, adding to the complexity.

Occupants, on the other hand, can come off long shifts, and forget to secure their seatbelt, or unbuckle it to turn and talk to someone behind them.

HEIGHTENED SAFETY FOCUS & COMMITMENT

With a zero-harm approach, Kinetic Specialised Resources has long invested in identifying safety risks and implementing industry-leading safety systems to improve their high level of safety standards for clients.

Additionally, most resource clients have workplace policies and legal requirements stipulating that passengers must always wear seatbelts for greater safety.

“Safety is everybody’s responsibility and good safety practices start with a top-down commitment,” said Joe Gould, Regional Manager – Workshop, Kinetic Specialised Resources.

“Our management team places the utmost importance on the safety of our passengers, team members and the community. It is our mission to ensure our passengers and driver work force get to work safely and, more importantly, make it home safely every day to their family at the end of their working shift.”

“At Kinetic we don’t wait for safety systems to be made mandatory to keep our drivers and passengers safe. Our company adopts forward-thinking initiatives, implementing systems to make sure we are at the forefront of safety and compliance,” said Joe.

SEAT BELT SOLUTION

Through their proactive approach Kinetic Specialised Resources has been progressively improving their occupant safety systems to ensure consistent compliance across client contracts and vehicles.

The MAX-SAFE Seatbelt Warning System™ has been installed on a range of vehicles (10 – 53 seaters), alerting drivers if any occupant does not have their seatbelt fastened.

The MAX-SAFE Seatbelt Warning System can work on all vehicle types to check and notify a driver if there are any unbuckled occupants, through an easy-to read display in front of the driver.

The solution has advanced logic and inbuilt circuit redundancy measures that ensure accuracy (e.g., it identifies unoccupied seats thereby not providing false alerts).

At all times, drivers can see at a glance how many seatbelts aren’t buckled in, with details of any unsafe occupants.

With this seatbelt warning system, a driver does not need to walk the isle prior to every departure to ensure passengers are buckled up prior to departing a stop.

Drivers also have the confidence that no matter what vehicle they are driving, the system works the same and is 100% reliable.

The solution can also incorporate the MAX-SAFE Universal Buckle which accepts all seatbelt tongue types, is more reliable than other buckle styles, and can be installed at a range of heights to suit a vehicle’s seats – enhancing safety and robustness.

OUTCOMES

“The MAX-SAFE Seatbelt Warning System optimises the safety of our clients’ most valuable asset – their employees – and Kinetics employees,” said Joe.

“It provides drivers with the confidence that passengers are buckled up prior to departing any stop, with the certainty that all occupants are legally compliant to company transport policies. In this way, there is less mucking about for drivers, leading to smoother, faster, safer departures,” he said.

“The investment in the MAX-SAFE seatbelt monitoring system plays a key role in our zero-harm approach because. – importantly – it ensures drivers can remain fully focused on driving safely, knowing passengers are properly buckled up.

“Safe transport is reliable transport – a key requirement of our transport contracts,” he added.

“With SGESCO-MAX we have confidence that the high-quality components, manufactured specifically for the MAX-SAFE Seatbelt Warning System, are highly accurate and suitable for Australia’s tough conditions and the range of vehicle types in use.

“SGESCO-MAX also has a national dealer and service partner network that can deliver local support. This provides us with the reassurance that if there were any issues, we would be supported in getting the vehicle back into service promptly,” said Joe. 

THE BENEFITS

The MAX-SAFE Seatbelt Warning System delivers:

• Less distractions for the driver.
• Both visual and audible warning signal options provided for both the driver and passengers.
• Robust commercial-grade solution for top performance.
• Advanced logic with self-testing algorithms ensuring system accuracy.
• Redundancy built-in for reliability.
• A safer journey with peace of mind for the operator.
• Optional audio announcer plug-in.
• Designed, manufactured and supported in Australia.
• Part of the MAX-SAFE Safety Eco-System

With thanks to Kinetic Specialised Resources for provision of images of fleet vehicles.