ADVERTISEMENT FEATURE: Making safety a priority

Date: Friday, July 14, 2023

It’s winter and rainfall has made everything slick. One of your drivers steps in his van and slips on the plywood floor of the cargo space.

No van operator should need to guess what danger exists in their van fleet. Legend Fleet Solutions has captured the attention of the UK’s commercial vehicle industry by prioritising safety in the manufacture of its best-selling cargo-van linings and floors.

Floors that are strong, lightweight and anti-slip

As a driver, safety can make the difference between going to work and loving your work.

Ensuring everything in your van is on solid footing and doesn’t move – if you don’t want it to – is key to protecting not only yourself, but your equipment as well. When considering a new floor for a van, toughness and durability is always at the top of mind. But there’s one other essential aspect that rarely gets enough attention: ‘grippiness’ or coefficient of friction.

It’s a common misconception that the ability to be sure-footed and not to slip on the van floor in winter or wet conditions is the exclusive responsibility of footwear. That’s only half true. The other half is that this responsibility should fall on the van floor as well. With a floor treated with or constructed out of anti-slip material, you can greatly reduce, and in some cases eliminate, the danger of a serious fall inside the van, even in slippery weather conditions – just as Riverford Organic Farmers discovered when they outfitted their fleet with LEGEND.

Industry standards recommend a coefficient of friction (COF) rating of 0.60 or higher on
a level surface and an 0.80 rating for access ramps. The higher the COF rating, the higher the anti-slip resistance in dry or wet conditions. Once a material hits a rating of one, you’ll find significant difficulty moving it across a floor which presents its own unique hazards.

Safety of drivers

Legend Fleet Solutions realised the common requirement of cargo-van linings had always been strength and resistance to harsh impacts – the two most in-demand components. But a third component, the safety of the worker, had always been an afterthought. So Legend developed a sustainable (75% recycled materials) composite floor that provided all three components in two powerful products: EVOLVE and STABILIGRIP flooring. With these two flagship products, durability, light weight and effective ‘grippiness’ exists in one solution.

To further call attention to Legend’s commitment to the employee who spends their time in the back of a cargo van, Insulated DuraTherm van linings were developed to mitigate heat inside the cargo area. These advanced linings successfully reduce the impact of vans predisposition to act as ovens in hot climates.

A combination of insulated ceiling liners and wall liners fitted into a work van that is operating in hot climates can effectively create a thermal barrier that prevents the outside heat from increasing inside the cargo area. Pair wall and ceiling liners with a floor covering and you can inhibit heat from the road as well, further cooling the interior and easing worker fatigue.

Known risk

How about reducing the temperature of a van’s cargo space by 20°F? It is possible with Legend’s industry-proven liners and floors. But fleet owners must face another hurdle; heat. Heat is what is called a ‘known risk’, meaning that if businesses seem ignore this risk by not taking steps to reduce heat increases within vans, it could have serious consequences to a business.

Awareness is key to creating and maintaining a safe working environment for both a fleet and its drivers.

Legend’s solutions ensure every business, its employees and its brand are protected from hazards that could otherwise could spell disaster for any operation.

www.legendfleet.com

What Van? Britain's biggest and best van buyers' guide