Brigade’s Sidescan®Predict recognised as an effective Road Safety Product by DVSA

Brigade’s ground-breaking Sidescan®Predict has been provided with a Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) recognised accreditation as an effective road safety product.

A first for the business, it is a tremendous accolade and testament to the hard work of the Brigade team in developing an effective safety solution to protect vulnerable road users, and one which meets the stringent requirements of the DVSA.

Renowned for always being ahead of the market, Brigade’s Sidescan®Predict is the next generation of side-detection sensor system, designed for collision avoidance between road vehicles, objects and vulnerable road users. Utilising ultrasonic technology, the intelligent system predicts if a collision is likely to occur with a vulnerable road user.

Sidescan®Predict constantly gathers object detection data such as the speed and distance of a cyclist or other vulnerable road user from the vehicle. Additional technology is embedded within the Sidescan®Predict system to gather information such as the speed, direction, acceleration, and the turning rate of a vehicle.

This data feeds an algorithm created by Brigade to calculate the risk of a collision with cyclists and pedestrians who are nearby the vehicle.

Designed for most rigid body vehicles including rigid box vehicles, tippers, mixers, coaches and buses, with the only requirement that they have a minimum length of 5.2m. Comprising six sensors which have a detection area of 2.5 metres.

The system is also always switched on when the vehicle’s speed is below 22mph/30kph, regardless of the indicator selection, and cannot be activated by the driver. Furthermore, by creating a predictive system, false alarms are significantly reduced, allowing the driver to be confident in the accuracy of the warning.
The DVSA only recognises products they truly deem a safety product and one that significantly improves the safety of road users of all types. This accreditation puts Brigade’s Sidescan®Predict among an exclusive club of vehicle safety products.

“To achieve DVSA recognition is a great achievement and one of which we are incredibly proud”, says Brigade’s UK Marketing Manager, Emily Hardy. “The team have been working extremely hard to ensure the Sidescan®Predict system is as effective as possible in reducing the risk to vulnerable road users and this is a great recognition for both the product and Brigade.”

Supported by the Knowledge Transfer Partnership initiative – which encourages collaboration between businesses and universities – and Cambridge University, Sidescan®Predict underwent rigorous testing for over seven years, with 10,000 hours of research. Initial trials took place in 2020, resulting in excellent driver feedback with drivers noticing a significant reduction in the risk of collision with both road users and static objects.

The benefits of the system have since been fitted by a number of operators, which Brigade sees increasing following the DVSA recognition as more companies seek to enhance their fleets’ vehicle safety and help drivers protect vulnerable road users.

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