Enhanced retractable safety marker

Abstract

An enhanced retractable safety marker is a device designed to provide motorists with advance warning of disabled vehicles and/or work zone areas. The device has been designed to withstand reasonable winds through the use of two base supports, several retractable horizontal stabilizers that fit through slots on the base supports and a series of retractable vertical risers. The retractable vertical risers allow for the device to easily expand to height consistent with traffic engineering design standards when in operation and then compact when it is in storage. The two base supports in combination with the retractable horizontal stabilizers are designed not only to provide the necessary structural stability but to also open and close about the retractable vertical risers thus providing for additional compactness. The shape of the vertical risers may either be rectangular, elliptical, square of circular depending on application and may have reflective decals affixed to them to correspond with standard traffic control design.

Description

BACKGROUND AND SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION [0001] This application relates to means of alerting motorists to the presence of disabled vehicles or work zone areas. Each year hundreds of motorists are either killed or injured along side the roadway. Many of these accidents may be prevented if the oncoming motorist had advance warning of the presence of these disabled vehicles. The present invention is an improvement or alternative to my prior U.S. Pat. No. 6,508,195. [0002] In recent years, a variety of traffic warning devices have become known and reference may be had to the following U.S. patents for a description of these prior art of traffic warning devices; U.S. Pat. Nos. Des. 6,508,195, 4,531,472, 5,263,272, 5,502,909, 5,544,614, 5,775,833, 5,517,395, 5,755,253, 4,535,331. [0003] While this has long been recognized as a traffic safety problem many needless deaths continue to happen every year. Current methods of enhancing motorist awareness include; flares, solid plastic cones and ...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0011] The Enhanced Retractable Safety Marker has been designed for easy placement during emergency situations. The first step in the application process is to rotate the two base supports from the closed to the open position (parallel with the lower portion of the retractable support element). Under high wind conditions, the user may fully extend the two retractable horizontal stabilizers on each base support to increase the unit's overall resistance to tipping. Once t...

Problems solved by technology

Each year hundreds of motorists are either killed or injured along side the roadway.

While this has long been recognized as a traffic safety problem many needless deaths continue to happen every year.

With roadside flares there is the inherent short fall that they only last a given period of time and are nor reusable.

In addition, they are usually only several inches above the roadway service and may present difficulty in operating.

Solid plastic cones are easy to place along the roadway however unless they are properly weighted and sized they may be displaced due to str...

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