A Bollard Could Save A Life

Car crashes into cafe, before hitting taxi in Eastwood, Sydney's north-west. Fatal car crashes are on the rise with 1,146 fatal deaths on Australia's roads in 2019, and headlines like the above have become all too common in the news cycle.

In February 2020 a woman died, and nine others were injured after an elderly man accidentally drove into a cafe in Sydney’s north-west. The investigating Detective stated the driver was pulling into a parking spot but crashed through a retaining wall.

State and Federal governments, sporting venues, councils and other large organisations have recognised the importance of Hostile Vehicle Mitigation in protecting the general public from rough vehicles or threats and have commenced rolling out PAS68 bollards across the country. Often disguised as statues or seats, popular installation sites across Australia include Bondi Beach, George Street in Sydney’s CBD and Bourke Street Mall in Melbourne. PAS68 bollards have been crash tested and are a proven solution used globally in the fight against terrorism and other external threats.

Crash tested bollards are the gold standard of impact protection as they provide certainty of performance. Unfortunately, the expense of PAS68 solutions makes them impractical for mass deployment across lower risk zones. This has resulted in a gap in the range for specifiers seeking a crash tested solution for preventing accidental impacts, where vehicular traffic and the public are in close proximity in low speed zones.

British Standard Institution (BSI) developed a new standard, PAS170, to protect people and places against accidental impacts. As opposed to PAS68 and IWA 14.1, where the testing weights range up to 7.5 tonnes and speeds up to 80 Km/hr, PAS170 is an international standard to test the performance of a single bollard when hit by a 2.5tonne vehicle travelling at a velocity 16 or 32 Km/hr.

LEDA, a market leader in perimeter security and hostile vehicle mitigation, has developed an ideal solution to help protect the public from errant vehicles in accidental impacts. The PAS170 bollard – The Custodian has been crash tested as a single bollard 2500kg vehicle at a rate of 32Km/hr. The Custodian complements Leda’s range of locally made PAS68 bollards and is a low cost solution suitable for deployment in a wide range of applications including retail outlets, child care centres, pickup zones, service stations and alfresco dining areas. The PAS 170 Custodian also aims to provide specifiers with the assurance of proven performance for low velocity impact for the first time and may also enable venues to negotiate their insurance premiums as the security measures are certified to an internationally recognised standard.

“The knock-on effect of introducing The Custodian PAS170, is local authorities now have access to more economical, certified crash tested products for sites such as store fronts, ATMs, car parks and busy streets, where there is only a need to specify security that can mitigate against incidents involving low-speed passenger vehicles” says Len Place, Leda Security Products’ Chief Executive Officer.

In these situations, there could be no requirement to consider a product that can stop a 7.5-tonne articulated truck travelling at 48/64/80Km/hr. Len also added that these bollards could be wrapped in a range of aesthetically attractive sleeves, providing an alternative purpose to the conventional rows of steel bollards.

For more information, contact Len on 1300 780 450 or any of the LEDA sales branches.

Visit www.ledasecurity.com.au and follow them on LinkedIn for the latest product news and updates.

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