By Mikayla van Loon
Every child’s dream is to be able to invent something someday – for Nicholas Hubbard it only took a couple of decades and a pandemic to give him the time to do so.
Living on a street in Belgrave that has a number of blind corners, Mr Hubbard had been pondering ideas of how he could alert drivers about oncoming cars since he moved in in 2002.
About eight weeks ago he said he had a “light bulb moment” and it got him on the path to creating a device that would alleviate the near misses that occur on his street.
“Outside of lockdown, this little quiet road is actually not that quiet and [the near misses] are very common, it would be multiple times a day,” Mr Hubbard said.
“I certainly am in and out multiple times a day and therefore, you can just about back in, you’re going to encounter somebody on one of these blind corners.”
“If you took a drive up my road you wouldn’t really call it windy, it’s really not but it just has the unfortunate corners and people do drive too fast, so there’s that element of it as well, a bit of coaching and learning for residents.”
The device he has created, with the help of Stuart Douglas from AGD Australia, uses two radar guns, pointing in both directions, which detect movement over 4km per hour and flash a light when two cars are recognised as moving.
Even as a 10 year old, Mr Hubbard was interested in all things spyware, to the point of bugging the teachers lounge at school and designing a light sensitive device that would let him and his brother know when their parents got home.
“I would best describe myself as a hobbyist level person in electronics. I’ve got a reasonable working knowledge but by no means would I consider I had a qualification or anything like that,” he said.
“I’ve been thinking about this problem for years and it’s just been on the back burner.
“I thought ‘Covid is stopping me from working, so to stop myself from going mad sitting at home let’s really devote some energy to these ideas that have been rolling around in your head for a long time and start trying to get some of them to come to fruition’.”
Not only does the device detect movement of cars but it will also pick up pedestrian movement as well.
“It’s a narrow road, there’s no footpath, so you’ll have people that are out walking on the road as well.”
Mr Hubbard has submitted the design to the Victorian Department of Transport (DoT), as well as the equivalent departments in other states, as he believes the device could be adapted to suit a number of dangerous roads.
“Transport New South Wales, I put a submission into them and they want to review it but they want me to make a change before they do because the flashing light doesn’t meet Australian standards.
“So I’m busy working on the next revision which will have two signs on it basically which will say ‘slow down’ or ‘caution’ or something like that. I’m just working out the design of that currently.”
Yarra Trams has also expressed some interest in the device to alert vehicles at tram stops of people stepping off trams.
While the feedback from local residents and neighbours has been extremely positive, Mr Hubbard said he has to take the device down as DoT hasn’t given authorisation for it to be there.
“As soon as I’ve got the revised version, I’m going to just put it back before the DoT and say ‘please have another look’.
“This thing works, as I drive up the street towards my house and every time I see it go off, I smile because my device is working, but as soon as I come around the corner there’s a car or there’s people walking their dog and it’s just like, how is that not a safer way to be living?”
