How a Blind Engineer Pioneered a Modern Driver’s Assistance System
If you’re a fan of automobiles, have you noticed that more cars out today are available with driver’s assistance systems?
Per the name suggests, these are an array of systems that exist to assist drivers, and they come in various functions: one to keep your car within the lane, one to detect blind spots, one to offer a bird’s eye view of your surrounding; the list pretty much goes on.
However, there’s one system that is a genuinely helpful invention. Moreover, it was also the envisioning of an engineer and inventor with zero functioning sights.
And his name was Ralph Teetor.
Ralph Teetor was born in 1890 in Indiana to a family who owned manufacturing businesses ranging from building bicycles to building car engines.
When he was five years old, he blinded his eyes out of a mishap as he was playing in a shop. However, like every story of greatness, that one childhood misfortune granted Teetor an ability like a heightened sense of touch.
According to a 1995 biography by his daughter Marjorie Teetor Meyer, “His hands became his eyes. His sense of touch was legendary”.
Aside from his heightened sense of touch, he also honed his other compensatory skills, including his senses of hearing and smell. In essence, Teetor was still able to navigate his ways in life. He even went to study in college, majoring in mechanical engineering.
Moreover, Teetor earned the respect of being one of the great mechanical engineers of his era. He also became the President of the Society of Automotive Engineers.
The Birth of Cruise Control
So far, we have established that Ralph Teetor was a gifted engineer who had invented many innovations, including the notable breakthrough of when he devised a new way to balance steam turbines on torpedo boat destroyers for the U.S. Navy during World War I right after he graduated from college.
But of course, we’re here to talk about the innovation that has become one of the essential driving assistance systems in modern times called the cruise control.
Around World War II, the U.S. government imposed a 35-mph (or about 56 km/h) speed limit to conserve the rising cost of fuels and because there were many hasty drivers during the ban. Teetor’s lawyer included.
His lawyer’s hasty way of driving made Teetor envision a speed regulator mechanism, where upon reaching the dialed-in speed, the driver’s foot would feel a resisting pressure from the gas pedal as a warning sign.
From this envisioning, the prototype of this speed regulator was invented and was first named Speedostat. This early prototype comprised a speed selector installed on the dashboard, connected to the engine’s compartment mechanism that ran off the drive shaft.
This prototype also acts as a governing mechanism to overcome spring tension by activating a vacuum-driven piston capable of pushing back against the gas pedal. Teetor then received a patent for this prototype device in the year 1950.
However, the first working model of the Speedostat lacked what Teetor called a ‘speed lock’ — a supporting mechanism that automatically sustains the dialed-in speed. This lack of a supporting device mechanism concerned Teetor because people would fall asleep at the wheel while holding the gas pedal.
As Teetor began to lobby automotive manufacturers to adopt the Speedostat as a factory-installed feature, he added the speed lock capability, using an electromagnetic motor to maintain the selected speed until the driver presses the brake pedal.
By 1958, the Speedostat became an optional feature first offered by Chrysler exclusively for its luxury models. One year later, it gained substantial popularity that Chrysler began offering the Speedostat on all car models. Next, General Motors Cadillac Division started offering this and renamed the device with cruise control.
It continued to become a convenient, although yet an essential feature over the next decade. However, when the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries or OPEC imposed an oil export embargo against the U.S. in 1973, Teetor’s innovation suddenly emerged as a remarkable invention that became a widely accepted gas-saving device.
Cruise Control Today
Today, cruise control has become one of the most featured driver’s assistance systems.
Is it a helpful feature? Oh yes, it is!
Based on my experience, this system does make driving on long distances much more convenient. Whenever I’m on the highway where my right leg that’s holding the gas pedal begins to feel tired, I can quickly press the dedicated button on the steering wheel to set my desired speed and just let the mechanism do its thing.
However, I do still need to be alert and not fall asleep. But at the very least, the stress from my right leg is taken care of.
Should this be another concern, we do not need to worry. Cruise control has recently evolved into adaptive/active cruise control, where radar is employed to detect a vehicle that is moving slower than you. When it does, it automatically adjusts the speed and the distance to a safe point according to that slower vehicle.
The bottom line is that cruise control is a marvel of engineering, and we all have the late Ralph Teetor to thank for this genius invention.
