Keeping our drivers safe is at the heart of everything we do

Know you’re in safe hands when it comes to your vehicle transport needs.

At D Pickering Ltd, we’re committed to keeping all of our drivers as safe as can be – as well as ensuring our vehicle transport service is second to none when delivering your motorhome or van in immaculate condition.

When we transport a vehicle, we often don’t get into the premises and we are delivering at the side of a road – and this is when our drivers become very vulnerable to oncoming traffic.

That’s why we’re one of the first vehicle transport companies to install air bars to the sides of our vehicles.

The air bars are made of fluorescent material filled with air and they come out to encourage drivers who see them to give the trucks a wide berth.

If they do hit them, they are just air-filled material so they don’t do any damage, but what it does is stop our drivers who may be working at the side of a truck being hit.

It makes people aware that the driver is working there.

“When cars see the air bar they immediately pass the truck more widely,” says Darrin Pickering.

“Our drivers are key to the business and we want to keep them safe – it’s become an essential safety feature.”

The air bar was developed by Simon Scaife, who also trains Darrin’s drivers through his company VTT.

Simon and his wife Sarah own the company Nuvech Solution Ltd, inventors of the air bar.

Simon came up with the idea as a former car transporter driver himself, who had been hit by a car’s wing mirror while working at the side of a truck during a training exercise.

Sarah says: “He was a car transporter driver for 20 years and moved up through the company before we set up our own company in driver training.

“One of the biggest hazards we found was with vehicles passing drivers at the side of the road – on one particular occasion, Simon was training someone and he got hit by a passing vehicle’s wing mirror.

“He came home and said ‘we need to do something about this’ and that was the beginning of the invention of air bars.”

It took about three years of painstaking research and development to get the product that you now see today, but Simon and Sarah knew it was going to be a worthwhile endeavour.

D Pickering Ltd became one of the first vehicle transporters to install the air bars on its vehicles and expects the full fleet to be fitted with them in the next two months.

Darrin said: “We’re delighted to be one of the first fleet of trucks to carry the air bar, showing that we put the safety of our vehicle transport fleet drivers first.

“With these air bars, as soon as another vehicle comes alongside a truck, they give one to two metres of space, which makes all the difference to the safety of our drivers.

“When you see it in action it’s amazing and Simon has very deservedly won an award for the product.”

For more information, contact D Pickering Ltd on 0191 387 4555.