Motor vehicles – With means for promoting safety of vehicle – its occupant or... – Responsive to absence or inattention of operator – or...
Patent
1986-04-21
1987-07-14
Love, John J.
Motor vehicles
With means for promoting safety of vehicle, its occupant or...
Responsive to absence or inattention of operator, or...
340575, G08B 2100
Patent
active
046796487
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
This invention relates to an alarm device for automobiles and similar vehicles, comprising a pulse timer connected to the battery of the vehicle through a contact activated upon forward driving in a high gear, said pulse timer being further connected to a warning lamp and through a first timing circuit to an acoustic alarm generator for operation of the latter after a first predetermined time interval following activation of the warning lamp, a switch being connected between the pulse timer on one hand and the warning lamp and said timing circuit, respectively, on the other hand, and being controlled by a contact selectively operable by the driver to interrupt the signal connection between the pulse timer and the warning lamp and the first timing circuit, respectively.
When motoring for a long time, in particular through relatively monotonous road stretches failing alertness or beginning bluntness or drowsiness of the driver frequently cause dangerous traffic situations and such conditions particularly occurring with long distance truck drivers and professional vehicle operators cause or are a contributory cause of a number of traffic accidents. The same applies in case of sudden illness. Therefore, a pronounced need exists for precautionary measures capable of eliminating the risk of such conditions without, incidentally, jeopardizing road safety.
So-called dead man's devices are generally known from railbound means of transport, in particular trains. Such devices include ordinarily one or more electrical contact systems to be kept continuously activated when driving and which on deactivation, e.g. caused by sudden illness striking the driver, effects an actual emergency procedure, most frequently in the form of prompt stopping.
Such active, automatically operating precautionary measures which have also been proposed for introduction in motor-cars or similar vehicles are for traffic safety reasons not appropriate in highway traffic.
An alarm device of the above mentioned type is known from U.S. Pat. No. 3,611,344 according to which the pulse timer activates the warning lamp at determined time intervals, e.g. every 4 minutes. If, before the expiry of said first time interval, the driver has not switched off the warning light by a reset button, the acoustic alarm is activated. In said device the operator thus knows beforehand when to activate the reset button in order to avoid the acoustic signal which makes the prior device less appropriate to prevent inattention of the driver caused by beginning drowsiness. The object of the invention is to provide a simply operating and inexpensive safety device remedying said deficiency of the prior device through activation of the warning light at varying non-predictable time intervals.
This is obtained according to the invention in that the pulse timer is a counter which in a closed condition of said switch supplies its activation signal in a predetermined final counting position, that said counter from a first clock generator or from a second clock generator, respectively, which are connected to the counter over a logic switching circuit either with a first counting pulse sequence in a first counting condition lasting until occupying said final counting condition or with a second counting pulse sequence in a second counting condition initiated by activation of the logic switching circuit in response to the counter generating said activation signal, said second counting pulse sequence having substantially higher frequency than said first sequence, a second timing circuit being connected to said selectively operable contact for supplying a stop signal to the counter during a predetermined second time interval following the drive's activation of said contact and supplying at the expiry of said second time interval a control signal to said switch for re-establishing the signal connection between the counter and the warning lamp and the first timing circuit, respectively.
Starting from a situation where the alarm device has just been deactivated by the driver's operation
REFERENCES:
patent: 2625594 (1953-01-01), Mathis
patent: 3611344 (1971-10-01), Couper
patent: 3654599 (1972-04-01), Sepper
patent: 3922665 (1975-11-01), Curry et al.
patent: 4005398 (1977-01-01), Inoue et al.
patent: 4359725 (1982-11-01), Balogh et al.
Love John J.
Weaver Ross
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