[neil100]

For Those van mounted wfp out there, did you consider it?

His safety at top of your list while driving?

Have you got a van mount done on the cheap but now wish you had got a crash tested cage?

Intrested in your views, because i'm going van mount and wonder weather I should pay the extra for ioincs or its sister company pure2o who have crash tested frames.

Brodex use the standerd in their litreture on the 3g .but I have been informed that they have not tested it. Umm

Difficult one,could do with some help.

Thanks Nel.

[matt]

have you spoken to brodex about it

see what they say about the results of the crach testing

let us know what they say

 

[riz]

Whats your life worth?

[Ian_Giles]

so in a crash, providing you are in a collision with a combined impact speed of no more than 25 mph you'll be safe!

No, I know, it isn't a clever thing to say, that isn't what the crash testing is about, its more about build quality and a guaranteed level of strength....or something like that.
But that doesn't mean that others that have not been crash tested are going to result in you have the best part of a ton of water splatter your brains over the nearest pavement (and then rinse it all away )

If you are trundling along at 40 mph, and hit a vehicle coming the other way who is also trundling along at a sedate 40 mph, well, an impact of 80 mph is going to mangle you up nicely, what effect this'll have on your tank of water, no matter how securely caged I don't know....


Ian

[24-7 S C Services]

Hi Everyone,

As Riz says, what is your life worth?

I remember reading a while back about the whole Ionics and Brodex crash testing (or so called crash testing by one), it was very interesting. But I cannot remember if the thread was on CIU or another forum.

Ian’s comments are good. But I would personally go with the crash tested one, if I was financial able to. Some gauruntee protection is better than no protection.

The other thing you have to remember is the driver of the vehicle is responsible under the Road Traffic Act for the load in the vehicle and the securing of this. If you did not have the gauruntee of a crash tested piece of equipment and you did have an accident and your tank comes loose and caused injury to anyone, then you will get the book thrown at you. If you have the gauruntee of the crash tested unit and this is proven to be at fault, you can then claim damages from the manufacturer.

So Nel, if you can afford it, invest in the Ionics one, you cannot put a price on your life.

Andrew

[Philip Hanson]

Brodex use the standerd in their litreture on the 3g .but I have been informed that they have not tested it. Umm

That's interesting, especially as the Advertising Standards Authority specifically ordered them to remove the reference to the FMVSS-208 standard because it had not been tested and certified to it.

Click here to see

Crash testing is, of course, a controversial issue.  But I believe that it is one that will be brought into the spotlight before long.  It has largely been ignored by most manufacturers, and I believe there is one simple reason : cost.

A crash-test program is extremely expensive, costing tens of thousands of pounds, and there are few WFP companies that can afford that sort of outlay.  Therefore, the only thing they can do is play down the importance of it.

Other industries have also been through what the water-fed pole industry is now going through with regards to crash-testing.  Van-racking for example is consistently crash-tested these days by companies like Sortimo, for exactly the same reason- that in a collision there is a danger that it will detach from its mountings and injure the driver and passengers.  What provoked the van-racking industry to crash-test?  It was series of fatalities and serious injuries caused by van-racking during otherwise surviveable collisions.

See Sortimo's views on the issue HERE

The product liability issues forced the manufacturers to invest in crash-test programs just to stay in business.  The same has not happened for WFP machines...yet.  But I think that unfortunatley, as WFP becomes so popular amongst window cleaners everywhere, its only a matter of time before someone is seriously injured, even fatally.  The question then is, who will the family look to for blame?  Will manufacturers be able to say that they weren't aware of the dangers?  No.

An easy way to bypass the whole crash danger issue is... get a trailer system instead.  Trailers present almost no danger to driver and passenger in a collision.  Then you won't need to worry about it!

-Philip

[Ian_Giles]

One other problem with going with the only crash tested system on the market is that...er...it's the only crash tested system on the market

I'm not sure on how generic the various water tanks are, from 250l up to 1000l how many variants are there?
Could you simply buy the cage itself from Ionics, or do you have to buy the tank as well?
Does this also mean, should you have no option but to buy the tank too, that Ionics would have to fit it themselves?
Would you then have no other option but to go with an Ionics system too?

I can certainly understand that they would have to fit the cage into your van, they would need to do so in able to ensure that it was fitted correctly to be able to conform to safety standards and so on, you could hardly make a claim against them if you had the tank fitted somewhere else could you. (Er, this is in the event of the tank coming lose and causing mayhem and you trying to say that it was the fault of the tank, and not the method of fitting)

Crash testing is always going to have a degree of controversy about it, an accident on the road is very different from the  crash test, impact speeds are almost always going to be way higher than those tested for a start.
Also the angle of impact, and site of actual impact on the body of the vehicles in an accident.

I've seen the cage that one guy have had done in his van, it was fixed to the floor by a guy who was heavily involved with stock cars.
The plates that anchored it to the floor of the van were about 8 or 9 inches square, with a plate of equal size on the underside of the van floor completing the sandwich.
This compared to another stainless steel cage with anchor points a fraction of that size.
The stainless steel one was fitted by a reputable WFP manufacturer (NOT Ionics I must add!!)
The other one was DIY.
I know which one I would have put my trust in.

Except that the DIY one was only the standard, tubular cage that these 1000l IBC cages come in!!
So the stainless steel cage itself got my vote in that particular comparison

Philllip makes a good point about trailers and safety, but trailers come with their own safety issues, if you slam on the brakes with over a ton of trailer + water behind you, and you are not in a perfectly straight line you WILL have big problems controling your vehicle!
If you are taking sudden, evasive action whilst braking, again, you may well have big problems controling your vehicle, once that trailer starts to go it can go in a big way, and that will cause BIG problems to anything in it's path!

For every upside, there is a downside...

Another thing to remember; vans are by their nature, beasts of burden.
Your tank may not be crash tested, but it will probably be caged and bolted to the floor of the van.
Compare this to the builder who is carrying a ton of cement, or the landscape specialist who has a ton of slabs or boulders in the back of his van.
Or god knows how many other tradesmen have a large weight of unsecured items in there.
Perhaps a more general safety thing would be for all vans to have bulkheads, that won't stop a ton of water, cement or paving slabs mashing you to pulp of course, but it gives major protection against other unsecured items...such as a hundred weight bag of cement or a couple of paving slabs:o

Regards,

Ian

[AuRavelling79]

Doesn't baffling the tank reduce the amount of securing needed. Otherwise tankers with 25,000 litres on board would burst open at the slightest bump?