Electronic sign might calm those road-ragers

By ALASTAIR SLOANE

John Bourne has done it - cut up another driver in traffic. In the past he would wave weakly in an "oops, my fault" kind of way.

Now he presses a button and an electronic sign in the rear window of his car spells out "sorry."

Another button lets Bourne say "thanks" if he is extended a courtesy. "Help" would come on if he found himself stranded.

"I screwed up in traffic on Gillies Ave the other day and flicked on the sorry sign," Bourne says. "The other driver smiled and waved.

"I've had people in cars behind me pointing and waving after they let me into traffic and I flicked on the thanks sign in response."

Bourne, a 58-year-old Auckland sales executive with visual media company Viscom, is the New Zealand distributor for the Envoy Courtesy messaging system, a $125 anti-road rage device which is winning friends and influencing people worldwide.

It is a simple box of tricks: some velcro and a rectangular sign wired to a three-button keypad which plugs into the cigarette lighter. It has been approved by police and the Land Transport Safety Authority.

"The key to it being approved was that the sign shows clear, red lettering which doesn't flash or blink. Thanks and sorry stay on for only five seconds, " Bourne says. The help sign goes till turned off.

"Also, its field of vision is restricted to drivers immediately behind the car. Drivers on either side can't see it. And most important, it cannot be reprogrammed to flash offensive messages."

Bourne says reports that the system had defused potential dangerous situations were being received by the makers all the time.

Only last month a motorist in central Auckland was punched and knocked unconscious in a road-rage incident. He is recovering from memory loss and his assailant faces jail and deportation. Another comparable incident was the kidnapping and beating in Glen Innes two years ago of a father of four.

In Alabama, a woman driver was jailed for 20 years for shooting another woman in a motorway incident.

In Britain, Doug Scott, the first Englishman to conquer Mt Everest, was attacked and beaten after beeping his horn in a car park.

A 78-year-old man in Yorkshire died after he was punched by a man half his age during a dispute at traffic lights. A 24-year-old man in London was jailed for four years for attacking two motorists in the space of 15 minutes.

The inventor of the messaging system, 30-year-old Scotsman Robbie Crawford, came up with the idea two years ago because he was "acting like the devil" on the road.

"I was one of the worst road-ragers," he says. "When I got behind the wheel of a car I grew horns. I found that I was cutting people up and apologising with hand signals which could easily be misconstrued, so I though this would be a good idea.

"I made a prototype of the device, tried it out myself and found it really useful. I was driving a BMW and overtook a van full of workmen. One of them stuck his finger up at me for overtaking, but when I flashed up 'thanks' they all started clapping and waving, so it defused the situation."

Crawford and his wife, Sharon, tested the invention for 18 months before going public.

Road safety campaigners in Britain welcomed the device. The National Courtesy Day on the Roads founder, the Rev Ian Gregory, says: "We have advocated for years that this kind of device would help drivers communicate with each other in a humane way."

Crawford's brainchild has also been endorsed by Britain's Royal Automobile Club.

"Every day we get piles of letters from people, sometimes more than 100," Crawford says of the reaction to the device.

"One friend of mine was chased for nearly 10 miles [16km] up a motorway by someone who wanted to buy one."