1950 The blind inventor’s vision

Ralph Teetor, born 130 years ago in Indiana, blinds himself in one eye while playing with a knife, age five. The other eye stops working a year later because of a merciless condition called sympathetic opthalmia. But he studies mechanical engineering and goes on to be an inventor with a keen (if belated) interest in safety. His Speedostat system, patented in 1950, is a mechanical way of nudging drivers who were about to breach a speed limit.