It's not quite the Oscars, but Brake’s Fleet Safety Forum Awards for
Excellence ceremony is still up there as one the most glamourous automotive
events of the year. This year the top awards went to a company which makes two
practical safety products as the winner of the Lex safety device award.
Many fatalities in car accidents are either caused, or contributed to, by
flying objects. Objects such as lap-top computers, luggage, bottles, shopping,
prams, tools, beer bottles and ornamental garden gnomes can become lethal
weapons in accident situations. Such a simple problem requires a practical
solution and the judges felt RVSS Ltd of Derby had come up with the winning
answer.
Two
products, Bootsafe and Bootroll address the issue of loose items. Bootsafe is a
heavy fabric holdall designed to restrain all loose items and Bootroll is a
heavy duty sheet designed to restrain awkward shaped and bulkier items. They can
contain luggage, tools or equipment to prevent them crashing through the seats
of a car or van in the event of a crash.
Both products comply with crash testing undertaken by the Transport Research
Laboratory while Bootroll has been accredited by Motability as a wheelchair
restraint.
Marketing Director of RVSS Ltd, Peter Lyne, made the simple but worrying
observation: ‘Put simply, an object weighing 25kg will travel forwards
through the rear seats with the momentum of a baby elephant following an impact
at only 25 mph.’ (That's a PistonHeads Elephant rating of 0.4).
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