SuddenStop for Your Car

While many people worry about flying or traveling abroad, it's the trip to the local grocery store in your car that's far more likely to get you killed or injured. Although our cars have gotten safer, our drivers haven't, especially when you add in the distractions of mobile phones, crackberries, iPod's hooked up to the stereo, and idiots doing text messaging.

Here's a simple solution that could save your bumper and your forehead: the SuddenStop license plate frame. When you slam on your brakes, it flashes, which should wake up the driver behind you and give them precious extra milliseconds to stop. (Just .25 seconds equates to 20 feet of stopping distance.) This is a simple and inexpensive device that requires no wiring to work. You just remove the screws from your license plate, put this under the plate, then screw it back in. It just "knows" when you've suddenly stopped and it flashes with long-use LED lights.


I got a sample one in the mail last week and gave it a whirl over the weekend. I'm happy to report it works, so hopefully now I've got a better chance of not being rear-ended by a chatty soccer mom in the SUV behind me.

The SuddenStop retails for $29.95 and you can buy it at their website or at auto parts retailers like Pep Boys. You may want to measure your license plate space before ripping open the packaging though. This fit on my car fine, but not in the indented enclosure of my wife's Mazda 626.