Land vehicles: bodies and tops – Bodies – Body shell
Reexamination Certificate
1998-12-21
2001-02-06
Pape, Joseph D. (Department: 3612)
Land vehicles: bodies and tops
Bodies
Body shell
C296S025000, C296S183100, C293S118000, C293S133000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06183042
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The invention relates generally to vehicular safety systems, and more particularly to a mobile vehicular safety system for securely storing and placing markers onto a road surface.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Our nation's roads and highways represent the life blood of our transportation system and impact on our daily lives in significant and myriad ways. Commercial enterprises such as commerce, industry, trucking and livery and public-funded entities such as police, firefighters, emergency response units, and countless other organizations and individuals in both the private and public sectors rely on local, state, and federal transportation departments to provide and maintain a sound infrastructure of roads and highways.
However, in order to support such an infrastructure, road construction and maintenance represents an ongoing and essential activity. While most travelers view road construction and road crews merely as an annoyance or impediment to timely arrival at their intended destination, clearly such a view is misplaced. Rather those who work to build and maintain the roadways facilitate, in the long run, quick easy and efficient access to location that would otherwise be difficult, if not impossible, to reach. In addition, road crew personnel assume a substantial risk of bodily injury from both unwary or inattentive drivers, as well as from other road construction equipment. For example, in the course of placing road markers such as cones, barriers, or signs, used to notify and alert drivers, road crew personnel have often been injured and even killed.
A number of solutions have been developed in the past to prevent such injuries to road crew personnel and to provide a safer and more secure work environment to those individuals in the act of placing or retrieving markers from the road surface. For example, an impact attenuation device placed on the back of a truck or other vehicle provides some measure of security to such road crew personnel. However, it is typical that in the course of placing or retrieving markers, such persons performing the task walk alongside the maintenance vehicle, and are thus left unprotected and susceptible to injuries from other drivers or by the vehicle itself. Accordingly, it is highly desirable to obtain a more secure apparatus and method for retrieving and placing markers onto a road surface.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is an object of the present invention to provide a mobile unit operative for securely storing and placing markers onto a surface, comprising a front cab; a bed coupled to a rear of the front cab, the bed comprising a planar surface for storing the markers; a well area coupled to a rear portion of the bed and having an at least one well structure coupled to the first planar surface, the well structure having a bottom and side walls for housing a person for placing or retrieving the markers on the surface, wherein the at least one well structure and the first planar surface are positionally aligned to permit retrieval/storage of a marker from the first planar surface for placement/retrieval on the surface via the person located within the well.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a method for securely storing and placing markers onto a road surface from a mobile vehicle comprising the steps of providing a first planar surface for storing the markers; coupling at least one well structure to an end of the first planar surface, the well structure having a first side wall integrally coupled to the end of the first planar surface, a second side wall opposite the first side wall, an interior side wall connected between said first and second opposite side walls, an exterior opening and a bottom floor; and placing a person within the well and operating in a first mode by removing the markers from the first planar surface and placing on the road surface by the person within the well, and in a second mode, removing from the surface the markers and storing onto the first planar surface by the person within the well structure.
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Howard Edward J.
Ingersoll Buchanan
Pape Joseph D.
Patel Kiran
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