Saturday, February 11, 2017, 9:15 PM
It is often said that good ideas were born out of need. This is what happened with Miguel José Catalá Albors, the Valencian architect of an invention that seems revolutionary: a motorless motorcycle that ends with the dead corner.
Catalá explains a passionate of the two wheels. It was his own experience that led him to develop a mirror that avoids drivers the gesture to turn his head when performing certain maneuvers. «I have been a motorist since the fourteen years. When I went to have lunch with the companions of a motorcyclist, I realized that the mirrors did not hide their function. I investigated and I saw that manufacturers made the cheapest mirror possible to pass on homologations, but that they did not serve at all in practice, ”says Catalá, who remembers the risk of serious accidents of these vehicles.
In 2015, of which you have the last data available according to DGT, 89,502 vehicles were involved in accidents included bicycles, of which 6,943 were motorcycles. That is, 7.75% of the injured.
According to Catalá, the blind spot or the so -called blind spot is usually the most common cause of motorcycle accidents. “The civil guard told me that almost all motorcyclists, after having suffered a sinister, say the same:” I have not seen it, “says this lawyer.” The rearview mirror does not give all information, “he adds.
The blind spot is especially dangerous in catching up the lane and changes at what time the cyclists usually turn back their heads to see if someone in turn promotes it. “That is a fuck, on top of the helmet that gets visibility,” he says.
These rear -view mirrors consist of two mirrors; A fixed one that gives the back and forms a sloping information as L inverted and movable that the right or left information provides. “So you can move forward and change with total security,” he explains. Catalá was inspired by trucks and buses for the design. «They have different mirrors, even one at the top. So I studied the corresponding legislation and called the patent association, “he describes.
The idea immediately aroused the importance of the public body. “A few days later the chief engineer called me to tell me that it was one of the best patents that they had reached because it was a simple and rescued life,” he says. That is why the entity assigned an engineer last year to guide him in the most technical part of the development.
5,000 sold
Although Catalá is in the middle of the negotiation phase with different manufacturers, it has already been possible to sell more than 5,000 mirrors. “They are not yet manufactured, but I already have contact with some companies, such as the Alfa Group, and it is probably already for sale this summer,” he says.
The only Catalan clause in the sale of the royalty is that the manufacturer makes two models, one of them as affordable as possible. «I don’t want to earn money with this, it’s for a social asset. I hope it is sold all over the world, “he says.
