Marty Vanderhoek, a life-long commercial trucker from Langley, B.C., Canada, invented Smart Lite to combat one dangerous area on a commercial truck – the front end blind spot. According to Vanderhoek, Smart Lite is a simple system designed to save lives.

All large trucks have side mirrors that a driver uses to view everything beside and behind the truck, Vanderhoek said. Although the driver can see behind or beside his or her truck the driver still cannot always see everything that is forward of the doors on the truck where the side mirrors are mounted. Smart Lite utilizes mirror to mirror technology to eliminate front end blind spots for professional drivers.

Smart Lite is mounted on both sides at the rear and at the top of a drivers truck. This is the place where the trucks reverse or back up lights are typically mounted on semi trailer trucks. Smart Lite is a replacement for the original back up lights that most trucks are equipped with but can also be installed as a new feature on a truck if the trucks reverse lights are mounted somewhere else on the truck. Smart Lite is manufactured with a back up light or turn signal on one side and a convex mirror on the opposite side, according to the company.

“The Smart Lite device is revolutionary in that it allows the operator to see what is occupying the space in that front end blind spot. Before Smart Lite there was no device or system that allowed the operator to make a 100% visual determination of what was beside him and a little ahead of his door. With Smart Lite that problem is now solved,” Vanderhoek said.

The device recently received an endorsement by the Insurance Corp. of British Columbia as a safety feature that greatly improves trucker safety, according to the manufacturer.