One more second.
Nearly 90 percent of rear-end vehicle crashes could have been avoided if the driver had that extra second to react, according to the National Highway Transportation and Safety Administration.
A Tucson company has patented a technology to give motorists that extra second.
The Safety First Brake Light system turns a vehicle’s third solid red brake light into pulsating bright-to-dim light to catch the attention of a driver coming up from behind.
The idea came to creator Loren Lemcke when he was sitting at a stoplight and noticed a car coming up behind him at a fast rate of speed.
Lemcke, a former video game executive, pumped his brakes to get the driver’s attention and it worked.
An idea was born.
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It turned out someone else had already come up with the idea, said Brad Dorsey, executive vice president of sales for Safety First.
When Lemcke went to take out a patent on the wiring system that transforms the brake lights, he found a similar product already had a patent.
But the original patent owner had been discouraged by lackluster sales and stopped pursuing his idea of flashing brake lights on all delivery trucks.
After some negotiations, he sold the patent to Lemcke and will receive royalties from Safety First, Dorsey said.
Promoting the flash
Lemcke, Dorsey and two other partners, Bill Wetmore and Ron Hiss, invested in the product and contracted with a manufacturing plant in China.
Their product is available through dealerships in Arizona, California, Texas, Utah, Indiana, Kentucky and Florida.
Locally, drivers can have it installed through O’Rielly Chevrolet, 6160 E. Broadway, or Larry H. Miller Dodge, 4220 E. 22nd St.
The system costs between $229 and $400.
Carlos Tribolet, general sales manager with O’Rielly, said the dealership offers it to all new car buyers and has expanded the product to its store in the service department.
“We believe in the product and we recommend it to other dealers wishing to offer quality products to their customers,” he wrote in a letter of endorsement.
The company is now working with manufacturers to have the pulsating brake light installed during assembly.
If successful, manufacturing of the product could come to Tucson, Dorsey said.
“That’s the game plan,” he said. “We’d like to manufacture it ourselves.”
