Getting belted a good idea
Behold, the Belt Starter.
“It just came to me one day when I forgot to buckle up,” said Rocco L., inventor of the handiest product to come out of Lorain since steel ingots. “It’s such simplicity. It wouldn’t even take a bucket of parts to build it.”
But what, Rocco, does this handy little invention do?
“You can’t start the car until your seat belt is on,” he said. “So it’s impossible to get, and it prevents zigzagging when you’re driving down the road trying to buckle up.”
The idea clicked in Rocco’s head nearly a year ago, when he drove past a police cruiser.
I almost clipped a car because I was trying to buckle up after I saw the cop go by,” he said. “It thought, ‘This has got to end.’”
He sketched out a few ideas reaching into his past and harnessing his experience where he worked for almost 40 years as technician at an electrical substartion.
He sent his idea to a Florida based company, Invent-Tech. “I saw a commercial they had on TV, so I sent my idea in,” he said. “I hear from them periodically, but the moment they get a bite, they’ll let me know.”
The company is marketing the patented product to automotive stores and manufacturers.
I can’t talk about how it’s made since it’s still being developed, but I can tell what it does,” Rocco said. “It’s easy to install, and it can save lives.
And money.
“A lot of people don’t forget to buckle up - they just don’t like to, Rocco said. “But when they get fined (by the police), they’ll remember. With this, the ‘click it or ticket’ thing is gone.”
Rocco isn’t sure what financial rewards lie in wait for his invention, since it’s still being marketed.
They won’t promise you any reward until someone buys the rights to it,” he said. “But it’s possible that when an automobile business gets hold of it, there might be some rewards.”
Yet, Rocco says he didn’t develop the Belt Starter for the money. “There are a lot of things that need remedied,” he said. “But this is about safety.”