Buying Guide: Lens-Tech Line of vision

Help reduce driver blind spot accidents with the latest Hi Vue Fresnel lenses from Lens-Tech

Hi Vue Fresnel Lenses

Lens-Tech designs and produces Hi Vue Fresnel lenses to help drivers see their blind spots. While low-entry cabs, retrofitted glass doors and camera systems can be effective ways to improve visibility, these are often expensive options.

The lenses are a simple, low-cost way to improve visibility and make vehicles safer. They are typically priced at £9.99 each (plus VAT), and discounts are available for orders of 10 or more units.

They are made from PVC or acrylic and can be easily attached to windows thanks to a self-adhesive backing. A series of concentric rings create a short focal length to bend the light and view out of the lens by 30 degrees. This is usually enough to eliminate blind spots caused by doors, panels and pillars.

The lenses are thin, lightweight and take up a nominal amount of window space at 210mm x 120mm.

Lens-Tech CEO Les Haigh says: “They are an at-a-glance device. If a cyclist or a pedestrian was moving through a driver’s field of vision, he wouldn’t see them in the vehicle’s nearside window, but would see them through the lens. It gives a little more time for the driver to spot someone.”

Working Together

In the UK, the lenses are issued by National Highways through the DVSA, police, highway enforcement officers and UK port border forces for left-handdrive vehicles. They assist drivers in countering mirror blind spot ‘side-swipe’, lane-change accidents.

The lenses were successfully tested by the UK’s Transport Research Laboratory, where they beat other blind spot safety devices during the evaluation and trials.

Lens-Tech supplies Fresnel wide-angle peeper window lenses to Daimler Trucks North America (DTNA) and Kenworth Trucks, US. These are designed to go on peeper windows and reveal the blind spot created by the front pillar and the truck’s long bull-nose tractor front.

Further Afield

Lens-Tech is expanding its lens adoption overseas with Transport for New South Wales in Australia the latest to test and approve Hi Vue as an anti-blind spot device. The organisation is advising transport operators to use the lens to mitigate lane-change and close proximity accidents.

Transport for NSW trialled the effectiveness of the Fresnel lens in minimising passenger side blind spots on HGVs and driver attitudes towards using the lens. The trial found that 61% of participants reported having the Fresnel lens made driving a bit safer, while 15% indicated the lens had helped them avoid a potential crash one or more times during the evaluation.

Transurban in Queensland is trialling the lenses following the highest fatality rate in more than a decade last year on state and the local road network. In December 2022 alone, 45% of serious injury incidents involved contributing factors aligned with blind spot merging events between HGVs and LCVs on Transurban’s Queensland network.

For more information, go to lens-tech.com; email info@lens-tech.com; or call 023 9298 9686