By Betty Beard
betty.beard@arizonarepublic.com
Every vehicle has a blind spot that can be deadly.
And now that vehicles have gained so much
weight, ballooning into SUVs and big pickup
trucks, those blind spots have only gotten bigger.
They cause motorists to miss seeing vehicles or back into
fences, walls, bicycles – and even pedestrians or children.
Last month, a Mesa father accidentally ran over his
20-month-old daughter after she darted out of the house
towardthebackofhisChevrolet
Suburban, according to police.
She fell under his rear tire
and died.
Ahwatukee Foothills resident
Lowell Martinson hopes to
eliminate such tragedies and
blind spots with a set of mirrors
he has designed and expects to
have on the market in the fall.
The ScopeOut mirrors are
designed for sedans and SUVs
to give drivers a look behind
their vehicles.
“What they are is an extra pair of eyes,” he said. “They
give you a 180-degree view before you back up.”
About 53 children have been killed in the country this
year in back-over deaths, according to Terry Dittmer,
a spokeswoman for Kids and Cars, a Kansas-based
organization.
She said vehicles don’t have just blind spots but blind
zones. And, according to Consumer Reports, they can
range from an average of 14 to 50 feet behind a vehicle,
depending on the size of the vehicle and the height of
the driver.
Martinson, a former Midwest high school history and
industrial arts teacher and varsity basketball coach, has
always liked to think of products. But before this, the
only product he had manufactured was a toy similar to
paddleball that came out about 30 years ago. |
“Like any inventor, I’ve got a drawerful of ideas,” he said.
About four years ago, he began thinking about those big
SUVs and how difficult they are to back out of driveways.
Also, a motorist in a small car parked between two SUVs
has to back out of a canyon.
“When you back out, you are totally blind,” he said. “And it’s hard to find a parking space without being
near SUVs.”
Working at his Ahwatukee Foothills home, he first played around with mirrors stuck to cardboard to figure out the
best placement and
curvatureofthemirrors.
Later he developed
clay and Styrofoam
models to get the shape.
He had to figure out
how to synchronize
the ScopeOut mirrors
with a vehicle’s three
standard mirrors to
eliminate blind spots.
 |
| Here is a set of Martinson’s ScopeOut mirrors mounted on
the flat rear window of a 2000 Dodge Durango SUV. |
Also, the mirrors have to be attached to a
vehicle. The ScopeOut for a car sits on the back trunk,
with two angled mirrors facing the front. For SUVs,
minivans and other large vehicles, he devised a pair of
mirrors that fit inside, near the rear side windows.
He also wanted an adhesive that would be strong but still
enable the mirrors to be removed if a driver wanted. He
settled on one produced by the 3M company.
Martinson has several patents on the devices. There
are other aftermarket products but they are generally
either rear view cameras or back up sensors, according to
Consumer Reports.
To find a manufacturer, Martinson looked on the
Internet, searching for a company that made sensors that
alert drivers to people or things behind them. That’s how
he found Sense Technologies Inc. of Grand Island, Neb.,
which also makes a backup sensor called Guardian Alert.
The suggested retail prices of the ScopeOut mirrors will be in the $90 to $100 range. |
Martinson hopes the product
will be in stores in the fall. Meanwhile, Sense Technologies
is taking advance orders through www.sensetech.com or
480-474-4309.
“I wanted something for the masses that everyone can
afford,” he said.
Martinson is working with the company to help sell and
market the product and has taken the title of sales and
marketing director for ScopeOut. He said he would also
get royalties from the sales.
“We feel like it’s really going to make a difference,” he said.
WHAT YOU CAN’T SEE CAN HURT YOU
Vehicles have blind spots, or zones, behind them that can range from 5 to 51 feet, according to measurements conducted by Consumer Reports magazine.
Researchers put a 28-inch traffic cone behind a number of vehicles and measured how far away it had to be before a driver could see its top. They took measurements for drivers who were 5 feet 8 and 5 feet 1 and found that the blind zones are shorter for taller drivers.
For example, the blind spot for a taller person a 2004 Toyota Prius would be 7 feet. For a shorter person, it would be 14 feet.
The distance of blind zones for other vehicles:
- 2003 six-cylinder Honda Accord: taller person,
13 feet; shorter person, 23 feet.2004 Chevrolet Impala LS: 14 feet; 26 feet.
2005 Honda Civic EX: 8 feet; 18 feet.
2003 Buick Park Avenue Ultra: 9 feet; 20 feet.
2003 Subaru Forester 2.5X: 7 feet; 12 feet
2004 Saturn Vue, V6: 16 feet; 22 feet.
2004 Ford Excape XLT: 13 feet; 16 feet.
2004 Ford F150 XLT pickup: 34 feet; 45 feet.
2002 Chevrolet Avalanche 1500: 29 feet; 51 feet.
Source: www.consumerreports.org
|
