MyIdeas - Graduated Brake Lights

Of all MyIdeas of the past, I may be most proud of this one because it speaks not only to technology but also to human interaction as a critical component of the social phenomenon of driving in traffic.

The idea is this - when driving in traffic, when people just rest their foot on the brake pedal, their brake lights turn fully on, and when they remove their foot, the brake lights turn off. There's no in-between, even though there are several degrees of urgency between just coasting without slowing down significantly and jamming on the brakes to avoid an imminent collision.

MyIdeas - New Car Smell

The year was 2007. I was hanging out with J (the other half of J and  D's Auto Talk) at his place and somehow, for whatever reason (the inspiration escapes me right now), I said to him "wouldn't it be cool if you could get that 'new car smell' in a spray bottle? People would buy it, and get that new car smell in their not-so-new cars." J never said a word, he just smirked. We went on with whatever it was we were doing and ended up in the garage. He reached up on the shelf and handed me a bottle. I had no idea what he was doing and when I looked at the bottle, there it was - a sprayable bottle of "new car smell".

This is not the most compelling idea from a safety or technology stand point. This is more along the lines of the Pet Rock"; nonetheless, that harmless fun fad made money.

Sure, it's possible my eyes had etched an image of the bottle in my brain without my conscious mind being aware of it. But, at the time, we just chalked it up to another example of a "silly idea" I had that someone else, somewhere else, had run with and (presumably) made money. And, even if they didn't make money, they had come to market and could say they "did that."

I've got to learn how to "do that."

Next - Graduated Brake Lights

Previous - Airbag Seatbelts

MyIdeas - Airbag Seatbelts

"We're going backwards," I thought to myself, back in 2004.

We had two car seats in the back for our six year old and three year old, and I thought about giving my six year old the treat of "riding up front with dad," like my dad did with me when I was a kid.

But, I was cautioned that it was unsafe. Why? Airbags.

It's not "safe" for a child to sit in the front seat in a vehicle with airbags, because the deploying air bag could cause head trauma in a frontal collision. "But," I thought, "aren't cars today supposed to be safer?" And it got me to thinking.

MyIdeas - Active Suspension

I had a bright idea the other day, and I was reminded that I've had some pretty good ideas in the past.

In fact, if I was born ten years earlier, I might already be a gazillionaire, because all my bright ideas have already been translated into actual inventions before I could figure out how to bring them to market myself (some might suggest that I wouldn't have had these ideas as I was just a product of the times and that, had I actually been born ten years earlier, the ideas I had still would have been actually developed by someone else ahead of me just the same, but that's just spoiling the fun here).