GB2253730A - Alert device for a motor vehicle - Google Patents

Abstract

An alert device for a motor vehicle comprises indicator means (17, 18L, 18R) for generating an alert signal to alert a user of the vehicle to the correct side of the road on which to drive the vehicle according to the regulations in the particular country. <IMAGE>

Description

ALERT DEVICE FOR A MOTOR VEHICLE This invention relates to an alert device for a motor vehicle such as a motor car or the like.

Both car ownership and foreign travel is increasing and it is now becoming more common for car owners to drive their cars in foreign countries. Further, as interstate trade increases, particularly throughout Europe, it is becoming more common for lorry drivers to drive their lorries across frontiers. Unfortunately not all countries have the same road traffic conventions. In particular in countries such as the United Kingdom vehicles drive on the left hand side of the road, whilst in other countries, such as the majority of those in continental Europe, vehicles must drive on the right hand side of the road. That is, as herein defined, motorists may be required to drive according to either a right or a left hand road traffic circulation convention.Therefore when a motorist travels between, for instance, the United Kingdom and France, they must remember to drive on the opposite side of the road to that with which they are familiar. When a motorist travels from a port in the United Kingdom to a port in France they may see road signs at the port alerting them to the fact that motorists must drive on the right hand side of the road in France, however, it is possible that a motorist may ignore, or simply not notice such signs. Also, once motorists are far from the port they will not be reminded of the road traffic convention and could forget it. Each year many accidents are caused by drivers forgetting to drive on the correct side of the road when they travel between countries having different road traffic systems. As foreign travel increases the number of such accidents occurring are also likely to increase.

Therefore there is a need, in the interests of road safety, for a means to alert motorists to the road traffic convention operating in a foreign country that cannot be ignored or not noticed, and that reaffirms the convention each time the motorist begins a journey.

According to the present invention there is provided an alert device for a motor vehicle comprising indicator means for generating an alert signal to alert a user of the vehicle to the road traffic circulation convention applicable in a particular country.

Such a device should preferably be adapted to fit any motor vehicle such as a motor cycle, motor car or lorry and be easy to install.

Also preferably the indicator means should be formed by activation of an audio and/or visual transducer. The indicator means could be activated by the user upon actuation of the ignition switch of the vehicle.

Further, the device could be provided with a means allowing the user to reset the device when alerted by the audio and/or visual indicator so that either or both of the audio and visual indicator is deactivated and the device is in a state ready to be reactivated upon further actuation of the ignition switch by the user. A motorist using the device on an interrupted journey would, therefore, be automatically re-alerted at re-commencement of the journey.

In the preferred embodiment of the invention, the indicator means is programmable by the user to indicate the traffic convention for the country concerned.

The invention will now be further described, by way of illustrative and non-limiting example, with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which; Figure 1 is a block diagram showing the principle components of an alerting device according to the invention; Figure 2 is a circuit diagram showing an alert device according to the invention connected in a motor vehicle's electrical circuitry; Figure 3 shows in plan view three possible displays produced by an alert device according to the invention.

Although an alerting device according to the invention can be adapted to any vehicle, for reasons of clarity, it is assumed in the rest of the description, unless otherwise stated, that the device is fitted to a car.

Figure 1 shows an alert device according to the present invention generally indicated by numeral 10. The device 10 includes a controller 15, an audio alarm 17 and visual indicators 18L and 18R. The device 10 is activated by a voltage applied to input 20 of the controller 15.

The voltage could be supplied by any dedicated power source though preferably the device 10 is constructed to be powered by the car's own battery 11 as illustrated in Figure 2. The voltage can be applied across the controller 15 by any suitable switching means 19 such as means for sensing closing of a car door or the actuation of the accelerator for the car engine. In the preferred embodiment of the invention shown in Figure 2 the switching means 19 is responsive to the operation of the ignition switch 12 for the car engine by a motorist.

The activated controller 15 sends a signal to the audio alarm 17 by an output 21 and activates either indicator 18L or 18R via output 22 and a direction switch 23. The audio signal could, for instance, be representative of a speech signal stored on a read only memory in the controller 15. In the preferred embodiment, however, the controller 15 simply causes the alarm 17 to emit an audible tone to alert the motorist. The motorist pre-programs the device 10 to activate either visual indicator 18L or 18R according to the position of the switch 23.

If, for instance, the motorist is driving in the France, the switch 23 is set to activate visual indicator 18R as illustrated in Figure 1.

Visual indicator 18R could be an arrow formed by light emitting diodes pointing to the right as illustrated in Figure 3C, or a message on a liquid crystal display or the like, indicating that the motorist should drive on the right hand side of the road as illustrated in Figure 3B.

The controller 15 preferably causes the light emitting diodes in Figure 3C or the liquid crystal display in Figure 3B to flash. If, however, the motorist is driving in the United Kingdom, for instance, then the motorist sets switch 23 to activate visual indicator 18L. Visual indicator 18L is similar to visual indicator 18R but indicates that the motorist should drive on the left hand side of the road as illustrated in Figure 3A. Thus the motorist receives both an audio and visual alert signal when the ignition switch 12 is actuated. The visual signal informs the motorist of the correct road traffic convention and the audio signal further attracts the attention of the motorist. The invasive nature of an audio alert ensures that the motorist is reminded of the unfamiliar road traffic convention even if the visual display itself is not prominent in the vision of the motorist.

Preferably, the controller 15 includes delay circuitry (not shown) which prevents output signals being sent to the audio alarm 17.

and visual indicator 18L or 18R, for a preset time interval of, for instance, 5 seconds. This allows the motorist time to be settled before being alerted. The delay circuitry could, for instance, be formed by a number of multi-vibrators. A monostable multi-vibrator that has a quasi stable state with a pulse width of around five seconds could be triggered by actuation of the ignition switch 12 by the motorist. The triggered pulse could then be used to activate an oscillator that would drive visual indicator 18L or 18R at a frequency of, for instance, 3Hz. The oscillator could also be used to activate a second oscillator that operates at a higher frequency of, for instance, 3kHz, which would be used to drive the alarm 17.Therefore, five seconds after the motorist activates the ignition switch 12 a visual alert signal is flashed by the visual indicator 18L or 18R, according to the pre-programmed position of the switch 23, an audio signal is pulsed by the alarm 17.

The device 10 also includes a reset switch 16. Actuation of switch 16 by the motorist causes the controller 15 to deactivate the alert signals and to reset itself so that it is disabled until a further operation of the ignition switch 12 by the motorist. The disabling of the controller 15 brought about by the action of the reset switch 16 could be due to, for instance, the reset switch 16 actuating a latching relay or bistable associated with the controller 15 the output of which inhibits the operation of the multivibrators until the further operation of the ignition switch 12.

An off switch 19 can optionally be provided to turn the alert device 10 off. In some circumstances it may be preferable not to have the switch 19 fitted to the alert device 10. For example, a hire car company or haulage firm may have the device 10 fitted to each vehicle in a fleet and they might want to ensure that a motorist is always alerted to the road traffic regulations. However, if the device 10 is fitted to a private car, the motorist might want to be able to turn it off when driving in a familiar country.

Figure 2 shows a part of a car's electrical circuit that includes a 12 volt battery 11 connected to coil 13 via the ignition switch 12 and a coil fuse 14 contained within a fuse box. The alert device 10 is connected to the coil fuse 14 of the coil 13 in such a way that it receives a 12V supply voltage when the ignition switch 12 is actuated.

The alert device 10 is connected to the coil 13 and the ignition switch 12 circuit because this is one of the few circuits that is normally activated when the motorist actuates the ignition switch 12. Also, it is advantageous to power the alert device 10 via the coil fuse 14 in the coil 13 circuit because this is one of the few circuits that can provide a relatively stable 12V supply when the ignition switch 12 is actuated to start the engine.

A typical visual display panel for the device 10 is shown in Figures 3A and 3B. The panel includes a reset button 16' and direction switch 23'. In the embodiment of the invention illustrated in Figures 3A and 3B there is no off switch 19. Figure 3C shows an embodiment of the invention including an off switch 19 in which a direction switch 23 and the off switch 19 are combined to form a single three position switch 24 for ease of operation.

There has been described an alert device 10 for a motor vehicle comprising indicator means 17, 18L, 18R for alerting a user of the vehicle to the road traffic circulation convention applicable in a particular country. It will be appreciated that the particular embodiment described is illustrative and that many additions or modifications are possible within the scope of the invention. For example the device 10 could be operable to permanently activate the visual indicator 18L, 18R even after actuation of reset switch 16.

That is, only the audio alarm 17 is activated upon operation of the ignition switch 12 and deactivated by actuation of the reset switch 16.

Also, the device 10 could be made operable to periodically activate the audio alarm 17 and/or visual indicator 18L, 18R after operation of the reset switch 16 by the user, thereby periodically reminding the user of the road traffic convention. Under normal circumstances it is only appropriate that the user is alerted to a foreign road traffic convention and it may not be necessary for the motorist to be reminded of a familiar system. The device 10 would be able to cater for such circumstances if the visual indicator 18L, 18R was pre-programmed by a manufacturer of the device 10 to indicate only one road traffic circulating convention. It would not then be necessary for the device 10 to include the direction switch 23 as the user only needs to be alerted to the foreign road traffic circulation convention.

Claims (15)

1. AP alert device for a motor vehicle comprising indicator means for generating an alert signal to alert and remind a user of the vehicle to the road traffic circulation convention applicable in a particular country.

2. An alert device according to claim 1 in which the indicator means is an audio and/or visual transducer generating an alert signal indicative of the road traffic circulation convention of the country.

3. An alert device according to claim 1 or claim 2 which is powered by a battery and the indicator means is activated by means sensing one or more conditions indicative of the presence of the user.

4. An alert device according to claim 3 in which the sensing means senses actuation of the ignition switch of the vehicle.

5. An alert device according to claim 3 or claim 4 including a time delay means which introduces a time delay between sensing of said one or more conditions by the sensing means and the activation of the indicator means.

6. An alert device according to any one of claims 3 to 5 including means to deactivate the indicator means after a predetermined time period.

7. An alert device according to any one of claims 3 to 6 including user operable disabling means for the user to deactivate the indicator means following an activation thereof.

8. An alert device according to any one of claims 3 to 7 wherein the indicator means comprises an audio and a visual transducer and including means for selectively deactivating the audio transducer while maintaining the visual transducer activated following activation of both the audio and visual transducers.

9. An alert device according to either one of claims 6 or 7 including resetting means for resetting the sensing means after deactivation of the indicator means.

10. An alert device according to any one of the previous claims in which the indicator means is programmable by the user to indicate either a left or right hand road traffic circulation convention.

11. An alert device according to claim 10 including user operable programming means to program the indicator means.

12. An alert device according to claims 2 to 9 including user operable programming means for programming the visual transducer to indicate either a left or right hand road traffic circulation convention.

13. An alert device according to any one of the previous claims including further user operable disabling means to prevent the alert device from generating an alert signal.

14. An alert device according to any one of claims 3 to 13 in which the battery is associated with the motor vehicle.

15. An alert device for a motor vehicle substantially as hereinbefore described and illustrated with respect to the accompanying drawings.

15. An alert device for a motor vehicle substantially as hereinbefore described and illustrated with respect to the accompanying drawings.

Amendments to the claims have been filed as follows 1. An alert device for a motor vehicle comprising means sensing one or more conditions indicative of the presence of a user of the vehicle and indicator means for generating an alert signal to alert and remind the user of the vehicle to the road traffic circulation convention applicable in a particular country, in which the indicator means is activated by the sensing means.

2. An alert device according to claim 1 in which the sensing means senses actuation of the ignition switch of the vehicle.

3. An alert device according to claim 1 or claim 2 including a time delay means which introduces a time delay between sensing of said one or more conditions by the sensing means and the activation of the indicator means.

4. An alert device according to any one of claims 1 to 3 in which the indicator means is an audio and/or visual transducer generating an alert signal indicative of the road traffic circulation convention of the country.

5. An alert device according to any one of claims 1 to 4 including means to deactivate the indicator means after a predetermined time period.

6. An alert device according to any one of claims 1 to 5 including user operable disabling means for the user to deactivate the indicator means following an activation thereof.

7. An alert device acccording to ant one of claims l to 6 wherein the indicator means comprises an audio and a visual transducer and including means for selectively deactivating the audio transducer while maintaining the visual transducer activated following activation of both the audio and visual transducers.

8. An alert device according to either one of claims 5 or 6 including resetting means for resetting the sensing means after deactivation of the indicator means.

9. An alert device according to any one of the previous claims in which the indicator means is programmable by the user to indicate either a left or right hand road traffic circulation convention.

10. An alert device according to claim 9 including user operable programming means to program the indicator means.

11. An alert device according to claims 4 to 8 including user operable programming means for programming the visual transducer to indicate either a left or right hand road traffic circulation convention.

12. An alert device according to any one of the previous claims including further user operable disabling means to prevent the alert device from generating an alert signal.

13. An alert device according to anyone of the previous claims which is powered by a battery.

14. An alert device according to claim 13 in which the battery is associated with the motor vehicle.