For decades, fleets have considered the staggering cost of collisions as unavoidable as death and taxes. These days, as new technologies alert drivers to potential collisions—and, increasingly, take complete control of the vehicle to avoid the collision altogether—fleet owners may well be wondering if there will come a day when collision costs become marginal......Read more   

If you want to get a sense of just how big open-pit haul trucks can get, consider this: These behemoths need as many as eight radar sensors and cameras to know what’s in front, along with the sides, and behind the truck. To help operators avoid collisions, a leader in accurate fatigue and distraction monitoring systems, brought together advanced technologies to create a powerful collision avoidance solution. When the company wanted to integrate radar sensing to complete its solution, it chose PRECO Electronics®—not only because of its advanced collision avoidance technology but because of PRECO’s reputation for high-quality and service...Read more

Machines, vehicles, and ground employees must work in close proximity when working on an aggregate site like Idaho Materials and Construction (IMCCO), a division of Oldcastle. There are often homes nearby. The mixture of these elements can result in a loud environment where backup alarms become less effective and intrusive to the surrounding neighbors. Because of Oldcastle’s corporate commitment to eliminating hazards and improving operations, IMCCO contacted Preco Electronics. The first priority was reducing blind spot accidents...Read more

New highway regulations in Texas have fleet managers looking for ways to equip specific heavy haul trucks with roll-stability systems and blind spot protection. The new regulations, as laid out in Texas Senate Bill 1524, address heavier oversize and overweight intermodal vehicles that carry oceangoing or international trade containers within 30 miles of a port of entry or international bridge. SB 1524 mandates that roll-stability systems and blind spot protection be installed on these vehicles as a precondition of receiving an operating permit from the Texas Department of Transportation. Many of today’s trucks come with standard roll-stability systems however, blind spot protection is less common...Read more

The European Union has a special name for certain parties who share highways and streets across the continent. They are the VRUs: vulnerable road users. These pedestrians, cyclists, and motorcyclists account for almost 50 percent of Europeans injured or killed each year in accidents involving vehicles—and 28 percent of those injured or killed in large truck crashes. More than half of these large truck incidents take place at low speeds. In Germany alone this year, more than 20 cyclists have been killed by right-turning trucks alone. The numbers are predicted to grow as governments across Europe promote walking and biking over driving and as more urban construction projects begin...Read more

The world would come to a grinding halt without utility workers and the companies they work for. With all utility companies and workers have to worry about, safety priorities for vehicles and drivers have a tendency to get pushed down the list. If there is one thing all utility professionals can agree on is that blind spot accidents are expensive. 45% of PRECO 2017 Utility Safety Survey respondents said that they have had six or more blind spot accidents within the year...Read more

The next time you are at an airport, take a look out the window. Observe all the activity that takes place when a plane is getting ready to take off, or just after landing.  You’ll see vehicles of all shapes and sizes delivering luggage and supplies, people on foot, and the massive airplane that will carry you to your destination.  Everything you see is moving quickly, yet in perfect harmony. One wrong move and everything can come to a screeching halt. This results in delayed flights and unhappy customers...Read more

When a world leading lumber mill saw the repair cost of a collision between a front loader and a truck, they started looking for a way to prevent such accidents. Their immediate solution was to adapt a radar detection sensor from a passenger vehicle. When they saw that the technology might work on heavy-duty equipment, they set out to find an industrial-grade solution, and found PRECO.  A previous incident at one of the company’s lumber yards took place when a front loader filled with full-length logs backed into a truck. After it picked up a load of logs, it started moving in reverse and backed into a truck causing about $30,000 in repairs...Read more...

Thousands of times every day in airports around the world, large pieces of equipment pull up to aircraft to provide a variety of services. JBT Corporation manufactures a wide scope of ground service equipment (GSE) including Cargo Loaders that load and unload cargo from the aircraft. If the loader operator does it correctly, it’s business as usual. If they collide with the airplane fuselage, operations can come to a complete halt, delaying takeoff times, costing airlines money, and frustrating passengers. One of JBT Corp’s main objectives is make sure the equipment it manufactures never makes forceful contact with the aircraft it’s servicing. To do so, it relies on a suite of sensors, with PRECO’s Preview Radar serving as the first-line of defense against such collisions...Read more

The good news at Imerys S.A.’s open pit mine in Lompoc, California, is that not many employees get around on foot in the mine area:  Fewer people on the ground interacting with mobile equipment traffic means less chance of vehicle-related injuries. However, the site has been in operation for over 100 years and, with a 5,000-acre footprint, property damage accidents were occurring at an unacceptable rate.  After consulting with other mine safety professionals, the site’s safety manager began installing PRECO Electronics’ PreView Radar systems on the site’s heavy equipment. Two years later, collisions at Lompoc had decreased by more than 50 percent...Read more

The combination of frequent storms, tourists, hungry rodents, and corrosive ocean air poses a challenge for all truck fleets operating in Hawaii. But for Honolulu Disposal Service’s garbage disposal trucks, the challenges can be even greater. Its trucks typically operate in bad weather and early morning hours when visibility is poor. They navigate busy, narrow urban streets and alleys. And despite all of their warning signs and sounds, these hulking vehicles seem to go unnoticed as people make their way home, to work, and to the beach. Given these factors, the responsibility for safety lands squarely on the shoulders of Honolulu Disposal’s drivers. To help its drivers operate as safely as possible, Honolulu Disposal equips its trucks with cameras, and with PRECO Electronics’ PreView Radar systems...Read more

A. SOLUTIONS, Inc. Looks to PRECO Electronics to Fill Important Object-Detection Gap