Side Protection Bars – the Benefits and Types of Protection They Offer

Lorries and cyclists are one of the most hazardous combinations on the roads. Statistics show that out of the serious accidents that occur between a lorry and a cyclist, 36% are fatal. That is typically due to the fact that cyclists end up underneath the lorry. Luckily, today there is a solution that helps prevent that from happening – side protection bars.

Being first implemented in 1979 in Japan, then followed by the EU and China, side protection bars can greatly help to prevent these types of accidents from occurring. So, if you are considering to install an underrun side protection on your vehicle but you aren’t sure if it will work and which type of protection you need, here’s a bit of help on the matter.

Benefits

– Of course, the very reason for this type of protection to be implemented on lorries was to offer better road safety. Some countries even make it obligatory not only for certain lorries to have side protection bars but to also have them covered in stripes of black and yellow reflective tape.

– Lots of heavy-duty lorries that use underrun protection like side skirts or guards actually have a better fuel economy thanks to their aerodynamic properties. While some might say that this is their only purpose, side skirts can also protect from side collisions quite well.

– Although this may not be a very common use of side protection bars, the amount of additional storage they offer allows you to install a toolbox underneath the lorry. This way you can free up some space for more important things in the cabin and put stuff like tie-down straps, backup tarpaulins, spare pallet corner protectors. You can neatly arrange any tools you need and although it is located underneath the lorry it is still very accessible.

Types

– The one that can be most often seen on the road is the open side underrun protection, which is used on most lorries, trailers and semi-trailers. It typically consists of two fixed rails and because of that, it is the cheapest option. But if you want to have access to that toolbox I mentioned before, it is prefered to have one that is supported by hinges.

– Closed underrun protection, on the other hand, is better at keeping other traffic participants safe and it also reduces fuel consumption more than open side protection. On the downside, it doesn’t enable you to have extra storage and it is a bit pricier than open side protection.