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Saving lives on the road with safety reflective products

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Tritech is one of the largest suppliers of road safety products in Malaysia.

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Andrew Lee, 70, is one of the pioneers of reflective tapes, stickers and safety garments for those who work on Malaysia’s busy streets. These include tanker drivers, field engineers and technicians.

It all began during his first job when he realised the occupational hazard of working as a surveyor. Car whizzed past him and his team mates all day and night as they worked on road construction sites.

Worrying about their on-the-job safety, Lee realised soon enough that high visibility clothing could literally save their lives.

Free Malaysia Today
Tritech manufactures and markets high-visibility safety reflective products to keep people safe while driving or working on construction zones at night or on rainy days.

“I thought it was very unsafe especially with huge trucks speeding past us. In the ‘70s, there were no safety standards. The rules were quite lax and there wasn’t a standard or specification for reflectivity as there is today.

“I knew that we could better ensure our safety on the job by wearing high-visibility vests,” said Lee.

So, he set-up Tritech Sdn Bhd in 1982, offering engineering survey services to developers, contractors and road builders.

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Tritech’s headquarters in Pandan Indah, Ampang.

In 1991, Lee branched out into reflective materials and expanded into supplying Road Safety Products. Tritech is now one of the largest suppliers of Road Safety Products in Malaysia.

“Tritech’s mission is to develop and market a range of products to help improve the visibility of people and objects, thereby improving road safety and saving lives,” he said.

“Our break into high-visibility safety reflective garments was Tenaga Nasional Bhd.

“At that time, the technical field crew wore plain safety reflective vests. What we did was to custom-make the vest with high-visibility fabric and reflective materials – with a TNB logo in front and a “Tenaga Nasional” backpatch printed in reflective film with the designation of the technical staff.

“The TNB engineer was impressed and so were the workers. They were so proud to wear their TNB safety vest that some paraded around the office when they first received it,” recounted Lee.

Back then, safety vests were simple outfits with four pieces of 10cm reflective strips, and were mainly worn by municipal workers.

Tritech has three product categories:

  • PPE (Personal Protective Equipment): Hi-visibility garments like safety vests and rainwear.
  • Traffic Management: Cones, reboundable poles, barriers, construction signs, delineators, string delineators, blinkers and arrow boards.
  • Vehicle safety: Safety triangles to be placed a few metres from your vehicle when it is parked by the roadside during an emergency, safety vests for drivers of field service vehicles for utility companies, and commercial vehicle reflectors.

How Tritech’s products differ from others

Tritech’s main business objective is to provide road safety products that comply with Malaysian standards and are harmonised with EU standards including MS1731 for safety vests, MS1409 safety triangles for motor vehicles, MS2294 safety triangles for commercial vehicles and MS828 reflectors for the rear of commercial vehicles.

Its products come in bright fluorescent colours with ORALITE brand reflective sheeting, making it highly visible in the daytime and nighttime.

Many crashes on roads and construction sites occur because of poor visibility and can be minimised if hazards and diversions are marked by delineators with a high reflective index.

1. Roads and highways

Roadside workers are sometimes hit by vehicles because they do not wear reflective garments with hi-visibility colours, especially at night.

Tritech manufactures high visibility garments that meet Malaysian Standard MS1731, equivalent to International Standard EN471(Europe), and ANSI(US).

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Tritech’s High Visibility Garments with reflective tapes.

There are three classes of high visibility garments required by Occupational Safety and Health regulations:

  • Class 1: worn by parking attendants, security guards, forklift drivers and construction workers where vehicles are travelling at a slow speed not exceeding 40 km/h.
  • Class 2: worn by highway workers such as flagmen and traffic management attendants where vehicles are travelling at an average speed of 40-80 km/h.
  • Class 3: these are for high exposure workers on highways and policemen working in an environment where vehicles are travelling at 80 km/h and above.

2. Construction zones

These areas are normally poorly lit and made worse during rainy days and when traffic management products are frequently moved to keep up with construction schedules.

Tritech’s traffic management products come with high quality reflectors of varying grades to improve visibility and guide vehicles especially at night and on rainy days.

Types of reflectors available:

  • Commercial Grade: Used for advertising stickers, direction signs and construction signs.
  • Engineering Grade: Used in cone collars, delineators in gardens and rural roads, direction signs and construction signs.
  • High Intensity Grade: Used in cone collars and delineators for use along federal roads.
  • Prismatic High Intensity: Used in direction signs, fluorescent coloured construction signs, delineator for use along federal roads and toll highways.

A frequent cause of road fatalities is when drivers, due to poor visibility, inadvertently ram into commercial vehicles stalled by the roadside. That is why the Road Transport Act (RTA) requires commercial vehicles to be fitted with a minimum of two MS828 reflectors at the rear to indicate their presence.

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Tanker fitted with MS828 reflectors. Inset: Reflected contour markings of tanker at night.

If these do not reflect light at night even when an oncoming vehicle’s headlights are on, the rear reflective sticker clearly does not comply with the MS828 standard. MS828 reflectors are very bright and can be seen from a distance of 200 metres in the dark with oncoming vehicle headlights.

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Safety triangle for private and commercial vehicles that complies with Malaysian Standard MS1409 and MS2294 respectively.

Other than MS828 reflectors, drivers of stalled vehicles should put up safety triangles MS2294 (for commercial vehicles) or MS1409 (for private vehicles) to give advance warning to oncoming vehicles of a hazard by the roadside, and in turn protect the stalled vehicle and its driver.

All products supplied by Tritech are of high quality and meet the requirements of JPJ, JKR, LLM, DBKL and various other local authorities.

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High reflectivity of vehicle with MS828 markings, safety triangle, cones and safety vest at night.

It is important that all road safety products meet safety standards and are outfitted with good quality reflectors that improve visibility and help drivers avoid a hazard.

Improving visibility does improve safety and reduce accidents.

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