Using a Smart Backup Alarm for Heavy Equipment Can Prevent Serious Injuries

Heavy equipment pedestrian injuries are a constant worry for operations and safety managers. Research into industrial vehicle safety shows that 1 in 6 workplace deaths involves an industrial vehicle.

A backup alarm could be just the solution you need to alert drivers and pedestrians of potential danger and meet your goal of a zero-accident workplace.

What is a Backup Alarm for Heavy Equipment?

Backup alarms for heavy equipment are typically audio buzzers or alarms that turn on when the equipment is driven in reverse. The alarm continues to sound until the reverse gear or direction is disengaged. These devices warn and alert nearby pedestrians of moving vehicles to prevent accidents and injuries. 

Challenges with Traditional Backup Alarms

Industrial workers are constantly bombarded with sounds and flashing lights. Consequently, this leads to severe alarm fatigue. As a result, workers simply stop paying attention and therefore they are almost always more likely to be involved in accidents.

Challenges with dumb alarms

A dumb backup alarm simply goes off whenever the equipment backs up. Whether a pedestrian is nearby or not. If you’ve already tried these alarms, you know that eventually no one pays attention.

Dumb alarms:
❌ Cause false alerts that are easy to ignore
❌ Do not warn operators of pedestrians in blind spots
❌ Do not track and report near misses for further investigation

So how do you make sure that heavy equipment operators and pedestrians pay attention to backup alarms?

You need smart alarms that:

✅ Turn on only when a pedestrian is detected
✅ Alert an operator to the presence of nearby pedestrians
✅ Capture safety data and report near misses automatically

A Smart Backup Alarm for Heavy Equipment

A smart backup alarms prevents alarm fatigue and only goes off when a pedestrian is present. As a result, safety goes up without increasing unnecessary distractions for your workers.

One such type of smart back up alarm is the SIERA.AI S3. S3 provides the industry’s first vision-based smart backup alarm for heavy equipment that uses deep learning. The S3 turns on ONLY when a pedestrian is detected because it differentiates between people and objects to prevent false alarms. Additionally, it has the ability to monitor and report near misses via a web dashboard. 

In 2020 alone, SIERA.AI prevented over 11,000 industrial vehicle accidents with the S3 technology. To learn more about how smart backup alarms can save accidents for you, download our free 5-step safety strategy guide. In this guide we dig deeper into 5 critical areas for you to monitor and show you proactive safety strategies you can implement to eliminate gaps in your heavy equipment safety.