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More B.C. businesses replacing the beep-beep-beep with a ‘white
noise’ vehicle back-up alarm
Published on: December 15, 2016
Richmond, B.C. – More employers across B.C. are replacing the
conventional, beep-beep-beep sounding vehicle back-up alarm with
a “broadband” or “white noise” back-up alarm. The broadband
alarm, which meets WorkSafeBC’s occupational health and safety
requirements, uses the same cadence but broadcasts a range of
frequencies, rather than a single frequency, as is typically
used in a conventional back-up alarm.
Reversing vehicles can pose a significant safety risk on work
sites. WorkSafeBC statistics show 11 workers were killed in the
10-year period from 2006 to 2015 when backing vehicles or mobile
equipment pinned them against an object and/or struck them.
The broadband alarm emits a pulsing, “psssht-psssht” sound that
is more focussed in the area where a person is potentially at
risk, thereby alerting workers and pedestrians who are in the
vicinity of the vehicle, while reducing noise disturbance in the
surrounding community.
Listen to the
‘white noise’, broadband backup alarm.
“When we hear beeping from back-up alarms all the time, we
gradually learn to ignore it as a warning signal,” says
WorkSafeBC occupational audiologist Sasha Brown. “With the
broadband alarm, because we’re not hearing it as much in our
daily lives, we are less likely to become used to the sound, or
habituated to it, and are therefore less likely to tune it out
when it is important for us to hear it.”
In 2015, the University of Victoria installed twenty broadband
alarms on its fleet of maintenance vehicles after receiving
noise complaints from nearby residents. Today, most of its
maintenance vehicles have been retrofitted and all new vehicles
are evaluated for the retrofit with the broadband alarm.
“The university wants to be a good neighbour to the surrounding
community,” says Darryl Huculak, Environmental, Health and
Safety Co-ordinator for the Facilities Department at the
University of Victoria. “We took a look, did some testing and
discussed it with the local WorkSafeBC office in Victoria. It
has a very unique sound, it makes it more noticeable to those
who need to hear it for safety reasons, and it’s eliminated our
noise complaints from nearby residents.”
The Resort Municipality of Whistler and the Corporation of Delta
have also installed the white noise back-up alarm on vehicles in
their fleets.
Learn more in the November/December edition of WorkSafe Magazine
WorkSafeBC is an independent provincial statutory agency
governed by a Board of Directors that serves 2.3 million workers
and more than 225,000 registered employers. WorkSafeBC was born
from the historic compromise between B.C.'s workers and
employers in 1917 where workers gave up the right to sue their
employers and fellow workers for injuries on the job in return
for a no-fault insurance program fully paid for by employers.
WorkSafeBC is committed to safe and healthy workplaces and to
providing return-to-work rehabilitation and legislated
compensation benefits.
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