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High-Tech Lessons
For Those Who Drive

A devastati-ng car crash led a nuclear physicist to
establish a high-tech driver education company.

DAN GERSTENFELD

SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS

01

N

othing in nuclear physi-
cist Jerry Ben-David's
past could even hint that
he would establish a hi-
tech company to save a life, not
make a profit.
It all began in the mid-1980s,
when a horrible car crash,
caused by a failure to keep the
proper distance between cars,
killed four of Professor Ben-
David's Bar-Ilan University stu-
dents.

Bradfield and Sydney Korov
through their Israel represen-
tative, Roger Mark.
DSS — Driver Safety Sys-
tems — was started. By 1993,
the research team realized the
company would have to operate
on a commercial basis.
The breakthrough came last
year when the Canadian-Jew-
ish Belzberg family, which had
already had an impressive se
ries of investments in Israeli hi-

-4

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etween Southfield Rd. & Evergreen) 810 • 352-1080

Here's a rare opportunity for Detroit to see an
extraordinary collection of treasured possessions that
immigrants brought from their homelands!

BECOMING AMERICAN WOMEN:
Clothing and the Jewish
Immigrant Experience
1880-1920

This unique exhibition was created in Chicago and
has been seen in only a few cities. This showing in Detroit
is the last of the tour, so don't miss it! There is also a
special section - a collection of photographs of those
who came to Detroit to find a better life:

The Jewish Immigrant
Experience in Michigan

Detroit Historical Museum
5401 Woodward at Kirby
Detroit
For hours and information, call
(313) 833-1805

Anna Steinberg Prentis, circa 1914.

The shock of the tragedy
eventually led to his association
with Dr. Eli Richter, head of the
epidemiology department at
Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital.
The two men decided to work at
isolating, through scientific
analysis, the primary elements
causing traffic accidents, and
the means of fighting them.
They saw a need to develop
an instrument that would help
police measure the distance be-
tween moving cars. The two sci-
entists put together a research
proposal.
The Jerusalem College of
Technology (JCT) took up the
challenge. Prof Joseph Boden-
heimer — now JCT president,
and then head of its electro-op-
tics department — establiShed
a research team. The project
also won the financial support
of British businessmen Michael

tech companies, decided to
acquire 42 percent of DSS. At
the time of the deal, DSS was
valued at close to $1 million; to-
day it is valued at $10 million.
DSS maintains that the ad-
vanced technology featured in
today's new cars lulls the driver
into a false sense of security.
The company's Marom
sustem, which is the size of a
video camera and can be in-
stalled on bridges and traffic
lights, can measure cars' fol-
lowing distance, as well as their
respective speeds. The scientists
plan to develop additional sys-
tems designed to control com-
pliance with stop signs and
crossing the dividing line be-
tween lanes.
Utilizing an infrared detector
and sophisticated digital pho-
tography, Marom captures the
image of an offending car even