Protecting My Family From SPEEDERS
Published July 09, 2021 · 10:15 · 226,187 views
About This Video
Van lives on blind curves in Topanga Canyon, and every time he backs out of his driveway he risks a collision from someone doing 60 in a 35. Every single day. His brother Dean devised the solution: park the Tacoma where the garbage cans go, mount a light bar on its roof visible from far enough down the road, and trigger it wirelessly from any vehicle using a $25 remote switch and a 65-pound magnet.
A brake-light test on passing cars confirms the system works. Drivers see the lights and slow down. The spirited man's version of traffic engineering: solve the problem yourself because the city won't.
Transcript
this spirited man loves his house it's his all-time favorite home he loves his town it's his all-time favorite hometown one of the great things about this little town especially if you ride motorcycles is the curves the blind curves for sporting fellas such as he the blind curves can be a real treat but for locals such as he they can be treacherous blind curves hide blind driveways blind curve blind driveway blind driveway blind driveway blind driveway blind curve my driveway some locals attempt to slow down traffic by mounting their own signs this one's our favorite it's about 8 and a half in by 11 in and mounted maybe 10 ft up 6 mph so this is what it's like to back out of my driveway um I snapped a couple of exhaust manifold bolts so it sounds like a lawn mower a land mower every single time if I'm headed south I usually turn around at the apex of the blind curve so that I can back into the driveway so that when I leave again I can pull out into traffic as opposed to backing into traffic so every time I come home if I'm coming home from the north I got to turn around in the dirt and then back in from the dirt but I'm worried that one day some kid is going to come whipping around that corner in a 95 Volkswagen Gulf with no breaks and God forbid T-Bone me or Isabelle while we're backing out whoa see that guy's getting out of his car to open his gate and he's right around the corner of a blind curve I wasn't even hit I hadn't hit the speed limit yet I was on my way to the speed limit the speed limit is 35 if you're going 35 and you see me you have enough time to slow down and let me out so at 60 you can see the Tacoma with enough room to slow down before creaming us so how do you solve this a lot of people have these mirrors but I just don't see how that works I guess you could set up a camera pointing this way but by the time the signal got from the camera to the internet to your car the kid would be vom I thought about installing a speed bump here in the middle of the night but I mean come on I've been trying to think of a solution for years and my brother Dean came up with a brilliant way to solve this problem step one is to park the Tacoma where the garbage cans go then we put a light bar on the roof of the Tacoma which you can see driving 60 miles an hour from far enough away down the other side of the blind curve far enough in advance to slow down before you God forbid t-bonus this turns the lights on and off I could punch uh a hole or pull out some plugs cut these wires route them through have this big hunk in my cab and turn it on and off from inside the cab but instead I mounted a 65lb magnet on the back with hot glue and I'm just going to magnet it to the chassis and then run these wires right to the battery okay so we got the light bar on the roof we got the power cord going to the control box how do we turn the lights on and how do we turn the lights on from the Land Cruiser or from the motorcycles and this is my favorite part of the whole project this was like $25 or something and look at how big and heavy this thing is and it does one thing it's a switch that is powered just an on switch just an on off switch that's it that's all it does they say it works through for up to like 400 ft and through walls so you connect this box to the lights which is the output and then to the battery and the ground or the hot or the wire I don't know what they're all called and the remote should work it comes with two remotes I ordered a third one right okay Moment of Truth oh yeah they work all right I'm in my golf or my GTI what's the difference I'm going 60 I'm 17 if I got those garbage cans I can slow down do I see them I see them I can see them and I slow down and I avoid Collision okay here's the brake light test let's see if we can slow them down I'm going to hide behind this tree so that the cars coming this way don't see me brake light test see if the brake lights go on and that was a GTI and yes they did all right that's good enough for me that's science random sample if you drive by my house and you see the lights on slow down because that means I'm pulling out or we're pulling out