[R129 SL] distance control

[Jan Kuylaars]

ZonnebloemGuy's.

Some years ago I was caught in very bad car accident , driving in Fog.
I was lucky that there was a voice inside my head  who told me ; "the next
time you brake, all cars stand still "
And it also happens. More then 20 miles highway wracked cars and wounded
people. Only a few cars , mine included, had no damage.
More than 4 ours I had to wait until the fog disappears, and we could drive
between the big accidents. I never forget what I seen then.

The next day I was thinking how it was possible that I did not have any
damage, while other people died.
The problem in fog is that you don't know if there is a car in front and
which speed it has.
So most people take no risk and give a hard brake. But that is just the
problem.
Like in traffic jam most people have no time to react, when you cant see
anything, you most of the time are too late.
I thought everybody must have such a voice in their head, but without Char
it isn't possible.

At that time in Holland we had speed control detectors and they were not
forbidden. Mine was from Bell electronics Canada.
Every time I passed a car with also a speed control detector I realized that
mine was making a sound.
And then I got that idea!  Make a radar on front of your car  what is
checking ( also true the fog ) what is the distance of the
car in front. If the distance is far enough no beep. When the distance
becomes smaller the beep starts and if the distance
becomes more closer the beep goes higher and louder, so you know when and
how fast you must brake.
Make it in a housing that you can hang on your windshield like a radar
detector and you have that warning sing all over the world.

After some day's I thought you can also built the system into the car when
it is new, and you can let the car automatically brake as hard
as necessary. So a very good idea.
But I did not have enough money to take a protection on the idea, and surely
not world wide.

In our country there is a high qualified engineering institute called TNO.
They ask our firm to develop a flat satellite dish. During our conversations
we must sign that everything we discussed should be
secret. In that conversation I asked them to do the same for us , with my
idea.
And I told them what I had invented. We could not produce the very High
Frequency parts we needed for the radar.
After leaving TNO we go on with our lives  and we did not hear anything from
TNO anymore.
We forgot all the conversations and we could not produce my idea so it go
into the cabinet.

Then I came private in bad conditions. My marriage brakes up after 23 years,
I found a new wife but  from all the stress
my body could not fight anymore and I became deadly sick.
A meningcocken bacteria came in my bloodstream and brain and I was almost
dead in 24 ours.
After 3 weeks on intensive care I was in the possibility to go home , but I
could not walk anymore.
So it took 8 months to recover and to go at work for normal ours.
Off course I did not think on my invention, I had other things on my mind.

Then suddenly I heard on the news that TNO  was practicing on cars with my
idea.
Mercedes was also putting the system in their CL500 and called it distance
control.
On this moment Lexus is also using the system.

I don't know who have got a big amount of money, but for sure I wasn't. Not
even a new 500SL.
Now I have regrets that I did not go to Mercedes and give them the idea for
a new 500SL.

But like Alain Braid from Ireland was the inventor of the television, he
died poor and almost nobody knows his name.
After that Nipkov  heard from the test from Braid and made his own disk, now
known as the Nipkov disk.
But if I ask my children who invented the television they say : Philips and
Sony,

So the inventor from the distance control is Jan the Flying Dutchmen

Knowing that this is saving lives all over the globe, give me enough
satisfaction to forget.
And hoping some day , some guy, remembers it was .

Jan Kuylaars Westerhoven Holland
Technical Manager Rian bv.



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