L Lynch Get Digital with the Thumbs Up

A long-term promoter of the ‘Thumbs Up’ safety scheme across the industry, for well over a decade now, L Lynch Plant Hire & Haulage have now combined with Safety Shield to create the UK’s first digital thumbs up visual and audible safety solution.

Our friend and industry colleague Peter Haddock travelled to the Lynch HQ to talk to Director Steven Sutch about this ground-breaking new technology, which is already being fitted to over 300 machines that are at work on the HS2 (High Speed Two) Ltd rail project.

Talking to Peter about this new development Steven Sutch said, “We are really pleased to have collaborated with both Jonathan Guest from Safety Shield and John Marley from SCS on this fantastic new concept. "We are moving into a different World now and everything is going towards a digital platform and this is another great step forward.

For example, on a winter's evening at say 3 pm a thumbs up from an operator could be misinterpreted, but with this system, you have both an audible and visual aid." In practical terms, to acknowledge they have seen a thumbs up from someone wanting to approach, the operator presses a button in the cab that triggers the sign illumination to change from a red no entry to a green 'Thumbs Up'.

This can also be accompanied by an audible message from an inbuilt speaker saying "Thumbs Up accepted approach with caution" At the same time as the button is pressed the machine is disabled and made safe with the operator then also using the deadman as an additional part of the machine safety procedure from Lynch.

I see this as a fantastic new system to keep personnel safe on sites, and I thank Peter for sharing this material and the video below with us on the Digger Man Blog.