Land Transport New Zealand

February 22, 2005

A New Zealander has come up with a way to save lives, and millions of dollars, spent on nose to tail accidents every year.

Stewart Andrews has invented a brake light system in which the faster you stop, the faster the lights flash.

An estimated 80 vehicles are damaged in nose-to-tail accidents every day and each year 1,400 result in injury or death. That is thought to be costing $30 million on vehicle repairs alone - not to mention much more on health costs.

Andrews says he hopes his invention will reduce the number of road accidents by thousands every year.

He says the idea first came to him when he was learning to drive.

"I kept thinking it's odd that it was the same signals coming out of the back of the vehicle, i.e. the brake lights coming on whether someone was braking hard or even just touching the brakes," says Andrews.

The device measures how hard someone is braking, and once it reaches a certain level it then triggers the hazard lights to flash – at a higher braking threshold the hazard lights flash even faster to attract attention to the emergency braking situation.

Auckland-based Databrake International is now being recognised for its huge potential. Its makers are receiving the supreme prize at the road safety innovation awards.

"This kind of device is available in some prestige models...but certainly as an after-market device that's affordable and easily installed...in just about any vehicle it's definitely pretty exciting," says Andy Knackstedt of Land Transport New Zealand.

The system is already going into some police cars, and its makers hope it will be in most vehicles within a decade.

Source: Land Transport New Zealand

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