Erecting low impact protection systems around car parks, warehouses and busy commercial premises is about Health & Safety compliance and avoiding costly damage or downtime. The trick is knowing which safety bollard to use.
Intrusion and incursion protection methods matter to a wide range of businesses. They serve to shield property, equipment and people from inadvertent or malicious damage.
Safety bollards are also a vital way to guide vehicles and people away from sensitive areas, to avoid accidents and to manage traffic risks on site.
The alternative is not just hefty bills for damage to walls, door frames and other structures. If you don’t use safety bollards properly, you could face the cost of vehicle or equipment damage. Worse still, if someone sustains a serious injury on your site, litigation and fines could run alongside a big dent in your company’s reputation!
What is an industrial safety bollard?
Walk or drive around any town and city and you’re likely to see decorative bollards; street furniture which stop vehicles, but which also blend in with the heritage and landscape. One of the most important things about bollards for work premises is that they are high visibility – including bright colours and reflective bands for low light situations.
Site safety bollards don’t blend in, they stand out!
Let’s look closely at the four main categories of commercial safety bollards.
1. ImpactSafe Heavy Duty Bollard
These are ideal if you are looking for ways to stop ‘smash and grab’ crimes or vehicle-ramming for terrorist purposes. They are also a useful way to protect structures and equipment when there is some other significant risk factor.
This includes, for example, heavy-duty bollards for airport security, around petrol stations, packed pedestrian walkways or premises vulnerable to large scale damage due to fleets of trucks or construction vehicles.
The most effective impact-resistant buffer posts are formed from shock-absorbing, high-density rubber. These reflect force back to the source of the incursion, as a way of staying stable and continuing to do their job. You also need to look for heavy-duty safety bollards with flush finish anti-trip floor anchors, to be sure they hold their integrity well.
Our tried and trusted option includes removable protective polymer covers. This means minor scrapes and scuffs don’t necessitate constant repainting.
2. Drop Core Bollard
You don’t always need immoveable safety posts. Drop Core Bollards give you the option of quick installation and repositioning as needed. This helps site managers to change the protective limits of the bollards, when wider vehicles are around or when fields of operation switch to a new location.
Though this is a demountable risk management system, you still need to find strong drop core bollards that resist a considerable degree of force. Ours are manufactured from steel and are available in two sizes: 1560mm and 1260mm.
As this a multi-purpose safety bollard, you can select a hazard appropriate colour: green and white for fire escape routes; red and white for high-risk areas, and black and yellow for cautionary bollards.
3. Bollard Cover Kits
If you have existing low impact safety and security posts installed, how can you amend their purpose or restore their appearance quickly?
This is when polyethene bollard cover kits are advantageous. They don’t just snap-fit to your existing post in various dimensions, they also add impact-absorbing foam spacers. These bollard cover kits can withstand all environmental conditions and can be colour coded according to risk (see the moveable drop core bollards section).
4. Flexible Bollards
The fourth category of reliable safety and security bollards are flexible posts to manage traffic (vehicles and pedestrians).
These versatile safety bollards bend and flex when they are hit. Then, they spring back to their original shape. This can be vital if you need to prevent incursions without causing damage to cars, equipment or people.
Suitable for internal safety management and external site protection, flexible bollards are a highly visual way to segregate an area, including reflective features to make them easy to see at night for 24-hour site traffic management.
Recommended safety bollards
Bollards manage traffic flow within work premises, directing and protecting vehicles. They also prevent vehicle intrusion of all forms, shielding assets and fulfilling important security functions.
Of course, all sorts of sharpened posts and other devices have been used in the past to tackle intruders! Fortunately, modern suppliers of safety bollards offer more creative and compliant ways to stop criminal and accidental intrusion!
It starts with a risk assessment. Then, contact Safe Industrial to plan and purchase the right safety bollards for your business.