Pressure Activated Banksman Safety Wand

Posted in Traffic Wands December 1st, 2024

Our latest traffic wand design was built around the requirements of banksmen directing HGV’s, construction plant and equipment and introduces a two button operation so that traffic marshals (often referred to as banksmen in the construction and transport sectors) can continually cycle through red and green signalling modes using a unique pressure switch mechanism.

The switch has to be continually pressed and held to operate the green lighting mode, once released the traffic wand reverts back to red. Inspiration originated from the railway sector and the ‘deadman lever’ on trains that had to be continually held otherwise the train would come to a stop. Similar concept with our banksman wand… release = red light = stop signal!

The KB27RG-CSW is a traffic wand that uniquely delivers this functionality and is another of our own designs. As the wand is very compact it lends itself to be worn on the person and we achieve this by providing the wand with two accessories that allow it to be retro fitted to PPE such as florescent jackets you can see this kit by clicking this link.

Different combinations of attachment are available if you visit the Klickfast section of our website, for example the wand could be worn on a belt using a combination of the Klickfast docking stud and a female docking station such as the DOCK01

Note Police and fire service uniforms generally have docking stations fitted to uniform already so may only requiring the Klickfast docking stud.

The concept is simple and is similar to safety devices used in industry and transport where a user has to exert continuous pressure for the green light function to operate. If the user releases pressure the traffic wand reverts back to a red light mode giving a STOP indicator.

This makes operator training highly intuitive, they do not have to fumble trying to press different switches to operate different light modes just release pressure, if an operator trips or drops the unit it will revert back to red.

This is similar in principle to our earlier design however this was limited to a single button operation which meant that operators had to use the same button to turn the wand on which went red immediately, a press and hold gave a green light and on release the wand reverted to red, however the next time you pressed the button it powered the wand off so you had to click twice to repeat the cycle.

With a two button operation, you power on the unit which goes red, then using the second button a press and hold gives the green light, release and its back to red, press and hold and green again. The light wand is always on until you select the power switch,

For good measure we have built in a practical and useful white light torch feature in the nose cone and also a red only function so that the light can for example be warn as a safety light if combined with our Klickfast fitting accessories.

We believe that this is a significant improvement on our earlier model and will be a very positive contribution to banksman safety