GB2540467A - Safety device - Google Patents

Abstract

A safety device, in particular one such as an under-run guard for improving the road safety of a large or heavy vehicle for vulnerable individuals such as pedestrians and cyclists, comprises an inflatable panel 100 mountable on a side portion of the vehicle 10. A biasing means (110, figure 7) is provided to bias the panel into a retracted configuration adjacent the side of the vehicle. The panel and the biasing means are configured such that, upon deployment, inflation of the panel overcomes the force exerted by the biasing means such that the panel is deployed toward the ground surface so as at least partially to obstruct the exposed area between the vehicle and the ground. The biasing means may comprise springs (172) or elastic cords or straps to apply a retracting tension to the inflatable panel. Linear elements such as roller chains (180) may guide the inflatable panel in a balanced manner. A brush (160) may be provided at a lower edge of the panel to close any gap between the panel and the ground.

Description

SAFETY DEVICE

Description

The present invention relates to a safety device for a vehicle. In particular, the invention relates to a device for improving the road safety of large or heavy vehicles for vulnerable individuals such as pedestrians and cyclists. The device may have other applications where it is necessary to prevent objects rolling underneath a vehicle. For example, military vehicles may need protection against grenades or other explosive devices being lobbed to roll underneath the vehicle in order to explode underneath where greater damage could be caused.

Background of the Invention

In recent years, cycling in urban areas has become increasingly popular. Cities with an infrastructure re-created in the post-war era tend to have segregated cycle lanes and cycle highways, which run separately from the main public carriageway along which mechanically propelled vehicles move. However, in many urban areas there is simply insufficient space for implementing these solutions. For instance, London and other cities having a much older design have inherently narrower streets, lacking the space between opposite building lines to incorporate segregated cycle lanes as well as pavements suited to serve the high volumes of pedestrians associated with any big city. Consequently, increasing numbers of cyclists in these cities continue to share road space with cars, motorcycles, and larger vehicles such as buses and heavy goods vehicles (HGVs).

The improvement of road safety for cyclists as well as for pedestrians, motorcyclists and other unprotected road users is consequently an issue of increasing concern. In particular, of the recorded collisions between cyclists and construction vehicles, the majority result either in serious or in fatal injury. Around 75% of those fatal or serious accidents involving cyclists are estimated to occur in metropolitan areas, where there is often competition for road space with vehicles such as lorries, buses and trucks as well as a large volume of cars and vans.

In a bid to help to reduce the number of incidents in which a cyclist or pedestrian is hurt or fatally injured whilst on the road, there has been and continues to be significant investment in accident prevention measures such as education, construction, infrastructure change and enforcement. However, the total prevention of road traffic accidents involving cyclists is not feasible. By way of example, cyclists at busy road junctions in large cities are often given priority space and may experience ‘bunching’, with up to one hundred cyclists or more jostling for position within a small area. This can lead to interference between cyclists and can, in some cases, be the cause of an accident in which a cyclist falls to the ground and subsequently comes into contact with the wheels of a moving vehicle.

There is therefore a need to mitigate the effects of, and the damage caused by, incidents of this type.

In Europe, goods vehicles and trailers with a maximum mass of 3,500 kg or more are required by law to be fitted with lateral protection variously described as under run bars, side bars or side guards. This legislation was introduced with a view to preventing the passage of smaller vehicles into the area behind the front wheels and beneath the undercarriage of the HGV, and most lorries and tippers are now factory- or retro-fitted with a suitable sidebar. However, according to the specification requirements lateral protection may legitimately stop as much as 550 mm from the road surface, which may still afford ample space for a cyclist or pedestrian to become trapped under the vehicle, or for his limb or head to be subject to a collision with the wheels of the vehicle. Indeed, these sideguards have repeatedly been demonstrated to be insufficient to save the life of an individual at road level. WO 207/115572 (KRUSSA) describes a safety device for a wheeled vehicle comprising an inflatable shield extending towards the road surface, and means for mounting the shield at the side of the vehicle adjacent a wheel of the vehicle. KRUSSA teaches resiliently mounting the shield within a frame having vertical frame parts so that if a part of the vertical frame strikes the roadway or other solid obstacle, the vertical frame part moves and the obstacle may be passed without any damage occurring to the safety shield. This document is treated as the closest prior art.

Nevertheless, a safety shield that skims the road surface decreases the efficiency of the vehicle. In order to solve the technical problem of providing safety in urban areas while allowing the vehicle to operate more efficiently outside urban areas, it has been proposed to provide a side guard that can moved between a deployed position close to the road surface and a storage position. DE 32 45 718 (IVECO) describes a blind-like shield that can be raised and lowered. US 4688824 (HERRING) discloses an alternative configuration which uses a flexible sheet as a shield. This can be folded up into a compact folded state when not required. The requirement for the shield to rolling or folded requires greater flexibility in the material of the shield and reduces its ability to deflect a body that may be in danger of being drawn toward the rear wheels.

Inflatable shields used as airbags are well known but these are designed for one time deployment only.

Technical Problem

There, therefore, remains a technical problem of providing a safety shield that can be repeatedly deployed, and which provides the degree of protection available from an inflated airbag that is effectively rigid.

Solution of the Invention

The present invention provides a safety device for a wheeled vehicle comprising an inflatable shield extending towards a road surface, and means for mounting the shield at the side of the vehicle adjacent a wheel of the vehicle; characterised in that the mounting enables the shield to be moved repeatedly between a retracted and deployed state, and comprises a device creating a force biasing the shield into the retracted state; and a connection to supply pressurised gas to the shield in order to inflate it into a deployed state to counterbalance the biasing force.

Other preferred features are defined in the appended claims.

The device creating a force biasing the shield into the retracted state can be described as a tensioning means.

Brief description of the drawings

An embodiment of the invention will now be described, by way of example only, with reference to the accompanying diagrammatic drawings in which:

Figure 1 is a partial perspective view of a generic HGV to which a conventional prior art side guard and a safety device in accordance with one embodiment of the invention is attached;

Figure 2 is a front view of the safety device;

Figure 3 is a vertical cross-section through the safety device;

Figure 4 is a detail showing the mounting of the safety device;

Figure 5 is a cross-section showing the mounting and the housing for a biasing device or tensioning means;

Figure 6 shows a side view through the housing of Figure 5: and Figure 7 shows the interior of the housing and the layout of one embodiment of the biasing device without the inflatable shield for clarity.

Detailed description of embodiments of the invention

Figure 1 is a schematic illustration of a lorry 10 of the type commonly used for carrying heavy loads. As shown, the lorry includes a cab 2, a front wheel set of which one wheel 20 is shown, a load-bearing flatbed 22 which could be part of a trailer coupled to the cab, and a rear wheel set of which one wheel 40 is shown. The safety device of the invention can also be used with lorries having multiple wheelsets. A standard design of sidebar or side guard 50 is shown fitted to the lorry adjacent the wheels 20, 40. This side guard consists of lower and upper bars 52, 54 with the lower bar 52 around 500mm or more above the road surface. Thus, a cyclist or other unprotected person falling to the ground could easily be drawn underneath the flatbed 22 and come into contact with the (moving) wheel 40.

The shield is suitable forHGVs, lorries, articulated lorries (semi-trailer trucks), vehicles including trailers and other heavy duty or industrial vehicles that are commonly driven on the road such as tipper lorries (dump trucks), military vehicles and cement mixing trucks. The safety device may be applied to the near side of the vehicle or on both sides.

Housing and Mounting

The safety device is fitted to the lower bar 52 of the side guard. The safety device is an inflatable shield or panel 100 that is shown in its deployed state or configuration. The panel 100 is made up of a series of interconnected, elongate tubular elements 102 or bags of which four are shown in the illustrated embodiment. The elements 102 are stacked together and each is an inflatable segment of the whole shield. The panel may comprise more or fewer segments as appropriate depending, among other factors, upon the height of the gap to be bridged in any specific case, the degree of rigidity to be achieved or the characteristics of the specific materials used.

An elongate box 120 above the uppermost inflatable segment 102 provides a housing for a deployment mechanism, which includes a tensioning means 110 shown and described in greater detail with reference to figure 7. The housing also incorporates a hydraulic connection between the vehicle’s hydraulic system and the inflatable shield 100 so that pressurised air can be directed into the shield when it is required to be deployed and released when it is to be retracted. A series of ports 122 are provided inside the housing 120 through which pressurised gas, typically air, can be made to flow so as to inflate and deflate the panel as discussed in greater detail below. Here, three ports are used, though this number may vary. A mounting device to hold the safety device to the vehicle, in this case to a lower bar 52 of the side guard 50, is an L-shaped bracket 130 which is pre-bored with a series of holes 132 to receive bolts 134 or other fixing means for mounting the bracket to the vehicle. Additional braces (not shown) can be used to connect the device to the undercarriage of the vehicle for greater stability.

As shown in figure 1, the safety device further includes an optional outer guard 190 that is also retrofitted to the entire space alongside sidebar 50. Though not essential, the guard may act to conceal the shield 100 of the device when in its deflated state so as to prevent or mitigate against any damage to the bag material that could ensue at an unforgiving works site.

Shield construction

The inflatable shield 100 is preferably made of a HYPALON (Registered Trade Mark) fabric of the type commonly used in the marine industry for the construction of inflatable boats, surfboards, flood defences and the like. This a polyester weave fabric with an outer layer of synthetic rubber such as chlorosulfonated polyethylene which provides high resistance to tear. The segments themselves can be created using the drop stitch process where 2 pieces of polyester woven support fabric are joined together with thousands of fine polyester thread lengths using a specialist drop stitch sewing machine. The segments are then completed with side walls and an airtight coating in the same manner as is used for the creation of marine inflatables. This is a process known in the prior art. The result of this process is that the walls of each segment are prevented from separating by more than a predetermined amount. In this way the individual segments can be inflated to great rigidity and the shield remains panel shaped without bulging as an airbag would. In the present case, the segments are interconnected so that the inflating air can pass from one to another to inflate the whole panel to a rigid state. The inventor has found that use of such a drop stitch construction results in an inflatable membrane that is lightweight and not unduly bulky or cumbersome but which, when inflated, forms a highly rigid barrier. Thus, when deployed and inflated, the shield is a panel that is rigid enough that a person (and any debris, such as a bicycle) colliding with it may effectively be forced away from the path of the rear wheels by the weight of the vehicle, preventing that person from being drawn underneath the vehicle trailer.

The uppermost segment 102, is bonded to the lower surface of housing 120 that is mounted onto the vehicle. Each successive segment or bag is then connected and preferably bonded to the one above allowing for airflow between the segments. Protruding tabs 140 can, if desired, be provided at the sides of some of the segments as shown in figure 2. These tabs 140 are provided with eyelets to serve as guides for the tensioning means. A bar 150 extends along the whole width of the panel and is provided with end pieces 152 that connect to the tensioning means 110. The bar 150 is also connected to the lowermost segment 102. In an alternative embodiment, a lower edge of the lowermost segment can perform the function of the bar. A reinforcing strip 154 formed, for example, by a double polypropylene angle section, can be provided to offer additional rigidity and protection between the lower segment 102 and the road surface 20, mitigating against abrasion of the fabric of the bag itself. The strip 154 can also support a brush element 160 which skims the road surface. This brush element can be mounted so that it can be removed and replaced as necessary. Alternative embodiments may include one or more strips of any other suitable, resistive material, attached to the lower edge of the panel along some or all of its length.

Where a length of polypropylene or other resistive material is provided to the bottom edge of the panel, this may meet with guard 190 when the panel is retracted so as to enclose the empty bags of the panel completely behind the guard, affording still further protection.

Biasing or Tensioning Means A biasing or tensioning means 110 is housed within the housing 120 and comprises two fixed pulleys or sprockets 170 at either end of the channel housing near the upper edge of the shield. An elastic or spring element 172 has one end fixed to the centre of each sprocket 170 and is connected to a respective linear element 180 such as a roller chain as used in bicycle chain drives. Each chain 180 passes over the opposite sprocket and its free end is connected to the end pieces 152 of the bar 150 at each side. The linear elements are thereby connected at each side at or near the lower edge of the shield. While one end of each linear element is connected at one side of the housing at a top edge, the other end of that linear element is fixed in the housing at the lower edge on the opposite side. The pair of linear elements therefore provide a balanced biasing means so that the panel descends in a level manner.

The two spring elements 172 are designed to bias the shield into a retracted state in which the segments are collapsed and concertinaed together underneath the housing 120 with the lower edge or bar 150 where provided, close to the bottom of the housing. In this retracted state, air is expelled from the segments as they are pulled upwards by the biasing force of the tensioning means which is no longer counterbalanced by the supply of pressurised gas. When pressurised gas is supplied to the segments, however, the inflated segments counterbalance the biasing force provided by the elastic elements and the shield moves into its deployed state as shown in figure 1 with the brush 160 skimming the road surface. The movement of the bar 150 and shield is controlled by the roller chain 180 which may pass through the eyelets provided in tabs 140.

In an alternative embodiment, the elastic or spring element and the linear elements are combined together and comprise an elastic strap or bungee cord. In such an embodiment, the sprockets 170 would be a plain pulley wheel to which a first end of each strap or cord is fixed. The spring and roller chain option is preferable as it is more durable and resistant to wear and provides a longer design life before maintenance is necessary. As the roller chain is more rigid, it is not necessary to guide it through tabs and it can simply pass alongside the shield and connect directly to the lower bar 150.

The second end of each elastic strap or cord is anchored to the bottom edge of the panel towards its outside edge. The elastic cord could be to the bar 150 or affixed to the reinforcing strip 154 bonded to the lowermost bag 102 of panel 100. In other examples, the cord may instead be fixed directly (for example, stitched) to the material of the panel, or hooked or tied onto an appropriate eyelet, at or near the lower edge of the panel.

The elastic cords just described are designed to have a degree of tension sufficient to hold the panel, when deflated, in a retracted state, with each of the bags of which it is made up being folded flat against the one above it. The material of the bag in this deflated configuration is thus gathered by the cords and held adjacent to the side of the vehicle, beneath the lower surface of the housing 120, away from any dirt and debris present at an off-road site at which the vehicle may be working.

The panel is designed and mounted so as to isolate completely the underside of the vehicle to which it is fitted when that vehicle is in use in an urban environment. The position of the shield between the wheels can be adapted for particular purposes and risks. As shown in figure 1, the shield is positioned close to the rear wheels. However, it can be designed to extend from the front end of the load space of the vehicle towards the rear end of the trailer, and could continue outside an outer surface of a centre wheel set to a point rearward of those wheels. This configuration conceals the wheels and provides protection along substantially the entire length of the load space, minimising the risk of a person or a person’s limb coming into contact with the wheels of the vehicle. This is not essential, however. There may be circumstances in which the shield panel 100 cannot be made to extend the full length of the load space; but if it serves to obstruct the space under the vehicle along at least a part of its length, it will still afford some protection to persons likely to fall under the vehicle wheels.

Furthermore, the safety device preferably extends, when deployed, from the bed of the load space of the vehicle in question substantially to the ground surface 20. In this way, the underside of the vehicle may be completely isolated. In the embodiment shown, the panel itself is designed such that the lower edge of the lowermost bag segment 102 is suspended, when in use, a distance above the ground, so as to improve the performance and/or driving of a vehicle through urban areas with the panel deployed. Additionally, damage or wear to the lower edge of the panel from continual rubbing or abrasion against the road surface as the vehicle moves may in this way be further avoided.

In order to close the remaining gap to penetration by a person’s hand, leg or other body part, the brush element 160 is then coupled to the bar 150 at the lower edge of the shield. The brush element includes an arrangement of stiff bristles configured to contact the ground during use. Where the panel includes reinforcing strips 154 as described above, these may conveniently be used to sandwich the upper ends of the bristles, thus securely fastening them to the panel. Alternative arrangements for securing the brush element(s) 160 to the panel are possible but, preferably, the brush elements are detachable from the panel so as to be individually maintainable and replaceable.

The inclusion of a brush arrangement 160 may advantageously assist the lifting of the panel over obstacles in the road; and, additionally, may act as an audible alert to individuals that a vehicle is close by, by means of the noise made as the bristles brush along the road surface. A single brush element 160 may extend longitudinally along the entire length of the panel, as shown in the drawing, or plurality of brush elements may be provided at intervals along the panel. In further embodiments, the brush may be provided to part of the panel only.

Though preferred, the arrangement just described, in which a panel and a brush element together bridge the gap between the lower edge of a vehicle and a ground surface, is not essential. In other embodiments, the brush elements 160 may be omitted. Provided that the residual gap between the lower edge of the panel 100 and the ground 20 is small in relation to the overall height of the underside of the vehicle above the road surface, the risk of serious injury in the event of a collision may still be reduced. In further embodiments still, the brush elements 160 may be omitted and the deployed panel 100 itself arranged to reach from the side of the vehicle substantially to ground level.

Use

Deployment and retraction of the panel will now be described.

When it is desired to drive the vehicle on an urban road, air is passed under pressure through the series of ports into the first segmentl02. As this segment inflates and becomes solid the air, under continuing pressure to enter the panel, will begin to move sequentially into the lower bags until, finally, the bottom bag is inflated to the designated pressure.

Inflation of the panel makes use of compressed air supplied from the vehicle itself (for example, from the vehicle’s pneumatic systems) and may be controlled, for example, through a control box located in the cab of the vehicle or at any other suitable point, such as at an accessible position along the outer edge of the housing 120. Optionally, the control box is fitted with a visual warning light and/or an audible buzzer that alerts the operator whenever the pressure within the panel drops.

Conversely, to retract the panel 100 the air pressure within the individual bags is simply released. This permits the tension of the elastic cord system to overcome the pressure of the residual air held in the bags 102 to 110. One or more pressure release valves located within the housing 120 allow controlled air release until the bags are gathered away from the ground surface once more.

Thus, the panel is maintained in an inflated state solely by means of air pressure. That pressure overcomes the elastic force provided by the spring element 172, which tends to pull the bar 150 and with it the lower portion of the panel back towards the lower edge of the side of the vehicle to which it is mounted. Advantageously, this absence of mechanical and moving parts required for deployment of the safety device may mean that the system is not vulnerable to dirt or foreign body ingress. Furthermore, even in the event that the system does become defective for whatever reason, the elasticity of the arrangement will act to bring the panel into a ‘default’ retracted state such that the vehicle may continue its core business unaffected.

The safety device may be retrofitted onto a lorry or other HGV in any suitable fashion.

Claims (10)

Claims

1. A safety device for a wheeled vehicle comprising an inflatable shield (100) extending towards a road surface, and means for mounting the shield at the side of the vehicle adjacent a wheel of the vehicle; characterised in that the mounting enables the shield to be moved repeatedly between a retracted and deployed state, and comprises a device creating a force biasing the shield into the retracted state; and a connection to supply pressurised gas to the shield in order to inflate it into a deployed state to counterbalance the biasing force.

2. A safety device as claimed in claim 1, wherein the inflatable shield comprises a series of interconnected elongate elements, the walls of which are prevented from separating by more than a predetermined amount.

3. A safety device as claimed in claim 1 or 2, wherein the inflated shield is substantially rigid.

4. A safety device as claimed in any one of the preceding claims, wherein the shield has a lower edge and the biasing device comprises linear elements having one end connected at each side at or near the lower edge.

5. A safety device as claimed in claim 4, wherein the linear elements are elastic cords.

6. A safety device as claimed in claim 4, wherein the linear elements comprise spring elements.

7. A safety device as claimed in claim 5 or 6, wherein the linear elements further comprise roller chain.

8. A safety device as claimed in claim 4, wherein the other end of each linear element is fixed in the housing at the opposite edge.

9. A safety device as claimed in any preceding claim, wherein the panel is inflatable by means of compressed air supplied in use from the vehicle.

10. A vehicle provided with a safety device according to any preceding claim.