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On Reflection
After years of peering into dirty, foggy and frosted-over truck mirrors, long-haul driver John Brown believes he has solved their image problem. Brown, of Greeley, Colo., has developed a West Coast mirror that washes, wipes and defrosts itself with just the flip of a switch.
Called the "Generation 2," the mirrors are being manufactured by Wind River Technologies of Fort Collins, Colo. (970-484-9041). The firm is presently knocking on truck builders' doors, trying to get the devices included as part of their data books.
Brown, 55, a driver for Western Distributors of Denver, says he got the idea when he was helping his father farm a few years ago and had to stop often to clean farm tractor mirrors. He worked up a device that would clean the mirrors for him.
"I had my own trucks leased to Mercer in Louisville at the time, and I figured if I could build one for a farm tractor, I could also make one for a truck," Brown says.
A big challenge was how to wipe grime off the mirror. Ice and snow could be melted with a heater, such as many mirrors have. And a washer pump plumbed into the truck's windshield washing system would loosen dirt. But how to sweep away the gunk?
His design uses a reversing helical screw to drive a wiper blade up and down the mirror surface. When it shuts off, it's at the top of the mirror out of the way, he says. The mirror has been tested for four years on Western Express trucks.
Brown's original design has been beefed up to withstand the rigors of trucking, says Bob Call, Wind River's national sales manager. The outer housing is made of 22-gauge polished stainless steel while the end caps are injection molded ABS plastic. A backbone reinforces the unit, reducing vibration and flex, Call says. Gears inside the unit are made of zinc-plated steel, Call adds, and virtually all components can be easily removed and replaced. A dash-mounted control switch toggles to run functions separately or together; a new remote is also available.
Brown found out how tough the design is a few months ago when the welds on a set of trailer tandems broke, turning the rig sideways and flipping it on its side. The accident ruined the rig and tore the mirror loose from its mountings. "But basically it stayed together. The motors even worked," he says.
Brown takes every opportunity to show the mirrors to other drivers. With concerns over truck safety rising, he sees the invention as a way to help reduce lane-change accidents. "When you can't see clearly out of your mirrors, that really cuts down on safety. This mirror lets you keep them clean under any conditions."
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