Vauxhall Specialist Vehicles choose Penny Hydraulics!

Vauxhall Specialist Vehicles have signed off their LL250, LoadLift loading platform at Penny Hydraulics today and we were delighted that they were so “impressed with the installation”.

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The LL250 LoadLift is a unique, lightweight and compact lifting platform for loading vans quickly and efficiently via the rear or side cargo doors. The LoadLift was specified for a Fire Service application on a Vauxhall Movano to lift truck and fire engine wheels and tyres into their vans, as well as other items, such as general plant up to 250kg in weight. The LL250 loading platform is a standard Penny Hydraulics brochure product, but was adapted slightly to suit the customer’s needs.

The Penny Hydraulics LL250 Loadlift is a unique product in the market place….it is so common to see tail lifts on pickups, but to see a hydraulically powdered lift on a van is extremely rare. This product has seen a sudden surge in business not just in the UK, but overseas too as customers require load handling equipment for vans within their fleets as well as their pick-ups.

The latest statistics from the HSE expose yet again the need to avoid manual handling and give more credence to calls for wider use of vehicle mounted lifting equipment and other load handling devices. The figures show that across all industries 31% of all fatal, serious and over-three-day injuries during the last reporting year were related to manual handling. This represents 37,000 people whose lives have been directly affected.

In the motor transport sector the story is even worse, with 38% of all reportable injuries related to manual handling. So while handling related injuries are significant in all industries the road transport sector has even more work to do to improve its safety record. The simplest and most effective way to reduce the risk of this type of injury is to eliminate the need for manual handling by changing the processes involved and providing employees with suitable load handling equipment.

In the road transport industry a further 35% of all reportable injuries were caused by slips, trips and falls from height. This includes falls from delivery and service vehicles. Incidents like this can be avoided by removing the need to approach or climb on a vehicle. Provision of appropriate load handling equipment is one possible solution.

While there may be a temptation to think that injuries are not going to happen there is another way of looking at the HSE figures: an accident or injury caused by manual handling or a slip, trip or fall is much more likely than one caused by fire or electric shock which have historically been taken far more seriously.

Often the simplest way to reduce the risk of an accident and resulting injury is to remove the potential cause. Providing employees with a crane on their vehicles is a good place to start. Manufacturers such as Penny Hydraulics continue to play their part by adding new features that promote safety and make it easier for operators to specify and install their products.

The LoadLift is lightweight and extremely compact, meaning valuable space in the back of the van can be used for carrying goods and is not taken up by the lifting equipment itself. Being so lightweight (the LL250 weighs just 100kg) promotes low vehicle emissions and increased fuel economy.

The LL250 loading platform comes with a variety of options including radio remote control, up-rated capacity, fixed toes (useful when wheeling trolleys onto the platform) and a choice of finishes. The LoadLift platform size can also be adapted to suit the application.

The LL250 loading platform range compliments the award winning Penny Hydraulics SwingLift range of electric manual cranes for vans which have working capacities up to 500kg.

For fleets with larger pick-ups and trucks that require higher capacity lifting equipment, the Penny Hydraulics new range of PH Cranes offer high capacity lifting up to 5.1tm, with boom reaches up to almost 7M!

The diverse range of Penny Hydraulics cranes and loading platforms for vans, pick-ups and trucks means that Penny Hydraulics are the ideal contact for lifting equipment for fleets big and small, for UTV’s like quads and utility vehicles, to 3.5 tonne commercial vehicles all the way up to 12 tonne trucks.