Automatic Driveway Gate Safety

When it comes to automatic driveway gate safety, badly installed automatic swings or sliding gates have the potential to cause significant injury.

Like cars or any machines we use regularly every day, there are dangers.
But we know how to look both ways when we cross the road or not to drive too quickly in the wet.
Modern cars also have airbags and anti-lock brakes.

Automatic Driveway Gate Safety is the same.

If you don’t know how to use it safely and it’s not built with safety features, it could be dangerous.

If you are interested to have an automatic driveway gate system, there are risks you need to know about. So this article gives you an outline of what to look for and how to make sure you have the right parts, and more importantly than that, you have to search for the knowledge right installer.

Putting a gate or a pair of gates, automation equipment and other accessories such as safety devices, locks, and access control systems together creates a new ‘machine’ from these elements. This new machine needs to be as safe as possible.

For most domestic installations, gates swing or slide open and closed. This creates a number of potential risks. These risks are based on how each gate moves in relationship to gate posts, other gate leaves, fences, walls, and railings.

To ensure you end up with safe automatic gates, the first step is to carry out a safety audit to identify the potential risks.

For getting good safety on your motorized driveway gate, you have to pay attention to:

A- Physically remove the different types of risk.
B- Physically prevent access to risk areas.
C- Educate users on the potential dangers and how to avoid them.

Unfortunately, there are times when a gate will be used or approached by people without knowledge of the risks and how to avoid them, so preventing physical access to the risk areas is always preferable.

Directives, Guides, and Recommendations

There are some Standards that describe the minimum requirements for a safe automatic gate system.

These include:

Recommends a minimum level of safeguarding against the crushing hazard at the closing edge of the driveway gate depending on the type of environment in which the driveway gate is operating.

The Standard defines 3 types of use:

Type 1 – The driveway gate is only used by trained users and there is no intended, inadvertent, or unauthorized access to it by members of the public.

Type 2 – A limited group of persons (for example persons sharing a block of flats) are trained to operate the driveway gate and the automated driveway gate is located in a public area.

Type 3 – Any person is free to operate the driveway gate and the gate is in contact with the general public.

Recommendations for the minimum levels of safeguarding based on how the automatic driveway gates will be used include the following:

As Type 1 gates are controlled and operated by trained users, they are not covered in this safety notice because the gates are not located in the vicinity of the general public.

But Type 2 or Type 3 gates with automatic controls are accessible to untrained individuals who may not understand the possible risks. They could, therefore, find themselves close to the risk areas of an unsafe driveway gate.

So the Standard gives advice on the level of safeguarding as follows:

1- The forces that operate the gate leaves must be limited using force limitation devices or sensitive protective equipment.

2- Provide ‘obstacle detection’ that recognizes the presence of a person or an obstacle in the area the driveway gate moves through.

3- The Machinery Directive describes what the installer needs to do when creating a new piece of machinery. This covers the paperwork and CE marking that you should receive from a good driveway gate automation company.

Royal Gate provides safe and standard parts and installation services for driveway gates and operator systems in Greater Vancouver BC, Canada.

If you are interested to have a sliding, swing, bi-folding, telescopic, or cantilever driveway gate and the automation system, we will be happy to share our best recommendations, with you.

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